Bugs End:
"I got an idea." Sam grabbed up the phone. I wondered briefly when they got the Pike family home number but put it out of mind. "Matt, it's Sam." I wondered if I could find a blow torch anywhere, fire always won against bugs. "Matt, just listen. You have to get your family out of that house right now." Hell, maybe all she needed was to find a lighter and hairspray, two second hand made blowtorch in the making. "Because something's coming." She already had a lighter. "Yeah, a lot more." Didn't normal homes usually have hair spray in stock, she wouldn't know, she herself only actually used it once for a school dance. "Yeah, a lot more." Damn, which pocket did she put her lighter in again? "You've gotta make him listen, okay?" That grabbed her attention.
"Are you friggen nuts?" I asked. She wasn't naive, she'd seen Matt's interactions with his father. No way would he listen to reason.
"Give me the phone." Dean snapped, taking one hand off the wheel to grab the phone from Sam. "Matt, under no circumstances are you to tell the truth, they'll just think you're nuts."
"Seriously, what were you thinking?" I scowled at Sam, moving to the edge of my seat. Sam gave her a look and a shrug.
Dean was still taking to Matt. "Tell him you have a sharp pain in your right side and you've gotta go to the hospital, okay?" He hung up and tossed the phone into the back where it landed in my lap. I put it aside, finding my lighter in the pocket of my cargo jeans closer to the knee. "Make him listen, what are you thinking?"
"Already told him Dean-O." I said, making sure my lighter was in an easy quick to reach spot. It'd be ridiculous to die just because I put it in one of the harder to reach spots I had.
It was another ten minutes of speeding and silence before Dean skidded to a stop outside the Pike household. Both Dean and I cursed as Larry came storming out the house looking pissed to hell, followed by Matt. I climbed out the car, taking my spot between Dean and Sam as Larry glared angrily at them, no longer the happy go salesman that tried to sale them a house. "Get off my property before I call the cops!" He shouted, pointing to they're car.
"Mr. Pike, listen." Sam tried but Larry's glare cut him off.
"Dad, they're just trying to help." Mike tried.
"Sir, something horrible is going to happen here soon." I gave it a try, stepping forward. "You and your family could die."
"You're crazy!" Larry snapped. I rolled my eyes impatiently, that wasn't the worst thing she's been called in life. Then Larry snapped at Matt, "Get in the house!" He was in denial, refusing to believe a single word anyone said.
Matt ignored him and told the Winchester's, "I'm sorry. I told him the truth." As if they hadn't figured that part out yet.
I nodded, "Yeah, great job Matt." I said with the Winchester temper.
Dean shared the same sentiment. "We had a plan Matt, what happened to the plan!" But Matt was just a kid, he didn't understand nine out of ten times led to people thinking they're nuts when believing the supernatural real. Thinking an army of bugs was going to kill you wasn't going to fly with Mr. Larry Pike.
Sam glanced at his watch. "Look, it's twelve AM." I glanced at the sky worriedly. "They are coming any minute now." I patted the pocket where my lighter was, glancing up at the house and figuring hair spray would be kept in the bathroom. "You need to get your family and go, before its to late." Sam finished.
Larry scoffed and said with ridicule, "Yeah, you mean before the biblical swarm."
I started tapping my fingers against my thigh impatiently. "Well you're not the first victim in the past six nights, all the others dying from sudden invasion of bugs!"
"Think about it for one minute." Dean gave it a try, glancing at the sky and back. "What do you think really happened to that realtor? And the gas company guy? You seriously don't think anything' weird going on over here." Anyone with half a brain had to know something bigger was happening. But then again, I knew from first hand experience how hard people would ignore all signs of the supernatural until it was to late. Those few that didn't either became hunters, or were saved by a hunter and tried putting it as far out of mind as possible.
Everything they said just seemed to go from one ear and out of the next of Larry's head. "Look, I don't know who you are but you're crazy." Larry was saying, waving his hands. "You come near my boy or my family again and we're gonna have a problem."
"That's not the only problem we have here." I said boldly, refusing to back down.
"Not to be a downer but if we don't go now, we'd probably won't make it to morning." Dean said.
Matt seemed to be the only believer. "Dad, they're right, okay? We're in danger."
Larry was growing more and more frustrated as he was losing control. "Matt, get inside. Now!" He shouted pissed. I noticed the Mrs. peeking out the window curtains.
But Matt was getting tired of being pushed around so he fought back. "No! Why won't you listen to me?!" Matt shouted.
Larry's eyes were wide with refusal to believe as he argued back with his son. "Because this is crazy!" He shouted. I impatiently pulled Sam's arm to me to catch a glance at his watch, this had been going on for ten minutes. "It doesn't make any sense!"
This was just getting annoying; putting my fingers to my mouth, I whistled sharply, quieting the surprised arguing father and son. "We don't have time for this family drama so just stow it for now if you plan on living past dawn!"
I thought vaguely I heard Dean saying 'meow' in a smirking tone but I had more important things to worry about right now. Sam stepped up, "Look, this land is cursed!" He said, trying to get that through they're heads. "People have died here!" That seemed to be what Larry wanted to ignore the most, bad business selling where a blood bath had been. "Now are you gonna really take that risk with your family?" Someone's heart had to be cold if they would risk the life of they're own flesh and blood.
"Wait." Dean said so suddenly that everyone fell quiet. "You hear that?" I felt the hair on my arms start to stand up, a chill creeping down my spine. There was a loud buzzing sound penetrating the air, reminding me of the time I threw a rock at a bee nest when I was five. I looked worriedly at the sky, biting on my lip as it got louder with every passing second.
"What the hell?" Larry muttered, looking behind her. I slowly turned around, seeing the bug light hanging on the porch. It killed several bugs as they flew to close. I swallowed hard nervously, my fingers flexing as I resisted reaching for a knife I knew wouldn't work.
Dean got straight to business, taking charge. "Alright, it's time to go." There was no way they'd make it to the car and outdrive out of the land in time to make it out alive. "Larry, get your wife."
"Guys." Matt suddenly said shakily. I slowly raised my head, clenching my jaw. Normally you wouldn't see bugs from a distance. But there was so many bees that they covered the sky, all wanting to kill the white men that was in the neighborhood...them. I took an unsettled step back, feeling my skin being clammy.
I swallowed hard, "We're in big shit."
Sam glanced to the car, "We'll never make it." Even if they did manage to drive, they'd still be on the land that holds the territory, meaning people death by bugs found in the news.
Dean as always, took charge of the situation. "Everybody, in the house." The house was they're only source of shelter for miles around. Without it they'd be dead within moments, death by being stung to death, to many bee stings at once could kill a person. And with how many bees were flying around, hell, that could kill an army. I didn't hesitate listening to my older brother. What, was I suppose to rebel against an order like that. Where else would I have gone that wouldn't equal bee stings. I spun around on my foot and raced to the house. Even though I was first to the door, swinging it open, protective instincts that made me a hunter whose goal was to save as many people as possible made me stop long enough for Matt and Larry to run through. Sisterly instincts made her wait until Sam was through the doorway. Then Dean stopped beside her and she didn't hesitate to enter. Dean slammed the door behind them and locked it up. I looked around the weak circle we stood in, everyone accounted for; Dean, Sam, Matt, and Larry. The wife, Joanie should be in the house since she hadn't seen her at all during this little encounter.
"Okay, is there anybody else in the neighborhood?" Sam immediately asked. I glanced anxiously towards the sheer curtains covering the windows. It never even occurred to her to just let the people die, every man for himself and all that. Her first thing was how fast she could outrun the bees to get to another house and save the people there.
So it was a relief when Larry answered with a, "No, it's just us." Everyone in one house was easier to protect till morning then being spread out among the neighborhood. That was when Joanie finally came in, attracted by the noise they were stirring up.
"Honey, what's happening? What's that noise?" Joanie immediately looked to her husband for information, briefly ignoring her son.
I had walked over to the window and was pulling the curtain back slightly to view the swarm covering the house like a buzzing blanket. "Trust me sister, you're going to wish you never knew." I let the curtain drop back into place.
"Call nine one one." Larry said. Joanie didn't move until he snapped at her. Joanie jumped surprised as he hadn't used that kind of tone on her in some time. Although she still didn't know what was going on or what the panic was about, she obediently picked up the phone and started to dial.
"I need towels." Dean said and was directed to the closet.
"And I need some kind of can spray." I said, making due on my thoughts for a quick made flamethrower. Barely a minute later and she was pulling a can of bug spray out from under the kitchen sink. It wasn't hair spray but it would have the same effect. Now I know what you're thinking, how could one measly can of bug spray possibly be enough for that bug army outside? Well that was what the lighter was for.
"Phones are dead." Joanie said, shakily lowering her phone as I returned.
"They must have chewed through the phone lines." Dean said. He started putting the towels he found in the crack at the bottom of the front door. Then the lights shut off. "And the power lines."
I was looking at the darkened light bulbs in the ceiling fans. "Damn, and I was hoping an ancient curse wouldn't know about modern day appliances."
"I need my cell." Larry like any normal person in an emergency grabbed his cell to call for help. He stopped and stared at the screen, "No signal."
"You won't get one." Dean said, straightening up. "They're blanketing the house." I felt disgusted at imagining those bees outside getting into the house, all creepy, crawling, and stingy. "Millions of bugs begin coaching on the doors and windows, covering the entire building." I felt a shiver go up my spine imaging being discovered with those bugs slowly eating away my dead flesh, but that was probably by over imagination talking.
There was silence for several long seconds. "So what do we do now?" Larry asked.
"We try to outlast it." Sam said. "Hopefully the curse will end at sunrise."
"Great." I said, once again grabbing Sam's wrist to look at his watch. "So we've only got a few more hours."
"We've got to get you a watch." Sam commented as I released his arm.
"If we survive the night, I'll let you buy me one." Everyone quieted down as they heard a noise from the fireplace, a creaking sound. Dean slowly took the can of bug spray from her limp hand.
"What is that?" Matt asked shakily.
I swallowed, "We can't exactly close off the fireplace, can we?" It was like a big huge open hole in the roof. The millions around the house could go down it at any moment, a free for all. And it sounded like they'd just discovered this little fact.
"Alright, I think everybody needs to get upstairs." Dean said. There was sudden silence, the quiet before a storm. Then hundreds of bees were suddenly storming them, all streaming in from the chimney to the fireplace. I screamed, waving my arms defensively. My scream mixed with those around me. I felt the heat of the flames as Dean used his lighter and the bug spray as a flame thrower. Dean shouted something but she couldn't hear over the screaming and the buzzing. So she let instinct take over, trying to escape and since she couldn't leave the house where even more was, she went up. The others followed and they didn't stop until Sam at the back slammed the attic door shut, locking them in a temporarily bee free room. Dust fell from the ceiling from all the commotion. Then the buzzing sound grew louder and louder with every passing second.
"Oh, God, what's that?" Joanie panicked. Her eyes were red like she was about to start crying any minute.
I looked up, coughing as more dust fell. "Something's eating through the woods." Dean realized first.
"Looks like the bees have some friends." I grumbled, backing up into Sam and away from the small window on the wall.
"Termites." Matt said shakily. It was the only bug I could think of that ate through wood. The entire group backed away from the noises above them, cornering themselves into one of the far corner. The Pike family was cowering behind the Winchester's. There was more silence before a hole in the ceiling caved through and the room was suddenly filling with bees. I shrieked as I got stung once or twice, grabbing the first thing I saw. It was a thing of big but thin wood they used to build housing walls propped up against the wall. Dean and Sam grabbed it from her, using they're superior height to try and block off the hole. But it was hopeless as more holes caved through, Dean tried using the bug spray and lighter but that didn't stop the bees from attacking. I bit my lip hard, trying not to scream as I desperately swatted at them, trying and failing not to get stung. But it was hard to do so with just my hands and face clear due to my jacket. Then through squinted eyes, I saw light as the sun started to rise. As if that was they're cue, the bee's left them alone flying out the hole as if they were never there. They had made it through the night and since the sixth night was over, there was nothing left for them to stay. Slowly, I joined my brothers by the windows, watching a herd of bugs disappear into the distance. The Pikes joined them, all relaxing relieved that they had made it out alive.
A few hours later after everyone cleaned up, the Pikes packed they're bags ready to leave this place behind. "I have never been so glad to see sunlight." I grinned, stretching my arms over my head.
"Yeah, I can tell." Sam chuckled as she tilted her face up to the sun. The family of three siblings casually walked over to Larry who was putting a box into a readied moving van that just arrived.
"What, no goodbye?" Dean asked.
"Good timing." Larry said, turning to face them. "Another hour and we'd have been gone." He held out his hand and I stepped up to shake it with my standard firm hand shake. Then he did the same with Sam and then Dean. Good, I would consider him insane for not leaving since this was more than a simple ghost hunting destroyed never to bother others again, this was cursed land after all.
"For good?" Sam made sure. After all, who wanted to stay in a place that nearly caused the death of them and they're family.
"Never to return." I clarified, slipping my hands into my pockets.
"Exactly." Larry said. "The developments been put on hold while the government investigates those bones you found." Well it's a good thing those bones are now doing something more than just sitting in the dirt. "But I'm gonna make damn sure no one lives here again." I felt myself swell up with that proud feeling of knowing I made a difference.
"You don't seem too upset about it." Sam noted. Wouldn't most people be, looking around this place, it had to be one of the most expensive housing construction in the state. Which is exactly what I told him.
"Actually, the most expensive in this state and the surrounding ones but somehow," Larry corrected, looking with a smile in Matt's direction who was carrying a box by the garage. "I really don't care." I started to grin, maybe all of this didn't completely suck. After all, it had brought a father and son back together.
Still smiling to myself, I walked on over to Matt who was throwing out his bug collection. "Let me guess, you're not starting over your collection?"
Matt shrugged sheepishly, dropping another case of pressed dead bugs into the trash. "They kind of creep me out after everything that happened." I laughed with Matt, I hoped he would be okay, I thought as I joined Dean and Sam by the car.
I leaned against the car, Sam beside her and Dean beside him. We were watching as Matt and Larry grinned at the other, helping each other put boxes into the moving van. "I wanna find dad." Sam said.
Dean glanced down and I bit my lip lightly. "Yeah, me to." He agreed sullenly, now squinting into the sunlight.
"I guess that makes three of us." I muttered, resting my hands inside of my pockets. She'd asked herself for over twenty years who her parents were. She once had a therapist when she was thirteen that told her the best way to move on with her life was to get closure. And to do that, she needed to confront the man that gave her away all those years ago. At the time she'd been pissed, wondering why the hell she'd want to meet the guy who gave her up. But now...maybe she had been right.
"I just..." Sam stuttered, taking a breath. "I just want to apologize to him." And I just wanted some answers and hope everything I was told was just a lie. Being abandoned because of my looks, I actually went through a faze by considering facial reconstruction surgery. Good thing I never actually went through with it, I settled for dyeing my hair multicolors and wearing non-prescription glasses but I stopped doing that by the time I was nineteen.
"For what?" Dean asked.
Sam shook his head, "All the things I said to him." There were some things I would like to say. "He was just doing the best he could."
"Not good enough if you ask me." I muttered. Dean, the little soldier child. Me, the forgotten abandoned child. Sam, the disowned collage-bound student child. What, did Dad have another child out there they didn't know about living the normal life.
Hundreds of miles away, Adam Milligan was sitting at his high school graduation, unable to contact his father and mom working to much to notice.
Back at the old Native American reserve, "Well when we find him, I'm sure we'll all have our piece." Dean said. "And then five minutes later Chris and I can watch the two of you at each other's throats."
I looked down at my feet with a small smirk playing on my lips. Sam laughed agreeing. There was pure silence as the family took a minute to breath after the night they had. Sam made the first move, "Let's hit the road." He straightened up off the car.
"Let's," Dean agreed, following suit.
I sighed, feeling the sun on my skin as I glanced around the soon to be empty residence. "Not like we have anything else to do here." I quipped, climbing into the back seat. With one last wave to the Pike family, the Winchester's left another empty town behind.
Back where it all started for the Winchester's in Lawence, Kansas; "Jenny, I finished bringing that last box from the garage." A young man said. This young man was twenty six, just breaching the six foot line with light brown hair and dark blue eyes. He wore your average jeans, worn out red sneakers and an old faded band t-shirt that had been baggy in his high school years but fitted snug since his final growth spurt. He had a pale skin tone from to many hours spent online in the dark, with arched brown eyebrows and an inherited strong chin from his father. He had a skinny frame but firm shoulders.
Jenny, the owner of the house, looked up startled from walking down the stairs. Realizing who it was, she said, "Thanks a bunch, Derek." Derek Matthews had been a guy passing through town looking for a bit of spare cash she'd hired to move in her heavier boxes since she and her two small children had just moved there.
"Anytime Ms. J." Derek said, wiping his sweaty hands over his jeans. Derek had grown up in the city and moved away at sixteen after his parents died in a car crash, leaving before the system could pick him up. After that he'd pretty much hitchhiked from town to town, to scared to stay in one place for to long for fear the system would show up at whichever doorway he'd managed to scrape together. He'd mainly slept in parks and squatted in empty houses those first few months. Then he started cleaning and doing dishes to get a free motel room for the night. By the time he'd been eighteen, he'd gotten so used to the quick moving that he never stopped, going to a new place every month with nothing more than his old school bag filled with clothes, a little money and personal items. At least now he managed to get bar tending jobs or working around the neighborhood which was what led him to Jenny, a young mother struggling to keep two children under control as she tried carrying a box bigger than her to her house from the back of her car. He'd stepped in which was how he got this small job for the time being.
Derek didn't know who he'd be meeting in just a week from that very day. He didn't understand that a small family of three would become his own in due time. How could he had possibly had known that his entire life was going to be turned upside down by they're arrival. Derek would never know it it was fate, destiny, or just pure chance that he arrived in Lawrence, Kansas during the same time She would. But those thoughts would never cross his mind, he was just your average joe finishing a job.
"Here, hold this a moment." Jenny passed him a small box she'd opened full of pictures as she'd reached for her purse to get his pay. Normally Derek minded his own business, but he glanced inside curiously. The top picture showed a blonde woman grinning but she wasn't Jenny, with three kids sitting on a couch. The one on the right was a little boy no older than five with dirty blonde hair and a grinning smile plastered on his face. A little baby barely weeks old from the looks, but what did he know about babies, in a blue onesie sitting firmly in the mother's arms. The one on the left was a girl barely two wearing a pink nightie and hair like the woman's in awkward ponytails like she'd attempted to do them herself the first time. She had climbed onto her knees, he could just barely see the curious expression on her face as she tried looking at the new baby over her mother's arms.
Still looking at them curiously, he asked what he was dying to know, "Hey Jen, who are these people?"
Jenny returned with his cash, taking the box from him and placing the money in his hand. "I'm not entirely sure actually, I think they're the people who lived here before. I found it left in the attic when I went to see what was all up there."
Derek glanced up to Jenny, confusion marring his face. "But I thought this house was just built." At least that was what the neighbors had said when he'd first shown up. He never questioned it.
Jenny slowly pulled out the top picture to read it. "It was but there was a house here before. There was a terrible fire that burned the place down, I guess the family moved on. They must have been living here when it happened."
Derek immediately noticed something Jenny hadn't. "There's something on the back." Pocketing his money, he turned it around for them to read the black sharpie words: 'Mary, Dean, and Christina Winchester welcoming baby Samuel home.' "They look so happy." He muttered, passing it back.
"I guess they had to have been at some point." Jenny muttered, taking the photo. But she looked unsettled, uncertain as she studied the words.
Derek always noticed the things other people ignored so he noticed immediately. He always wanted to help out when he could, never believing the saying that 'it was somebody else's problem'. "What is it?" He asked.
Jenny bit her lip, putting the photo on top of the stack of similar ones in the small wooden box. "It's just...the name Winchester. I can't help but think I've heard that name somewhere before."
Derek started thinking of ways she could have. "Well you did buy this house. Maybe you heard the name mentioned by the real estates agents or read it when you were doing paperwork."
Jenny still looked unsettled but dismissed it, agreeing with him. "Maybe you're right." She closed up the box. Derek barely got a glimpse of the little girl half hidden in the shadows from the lid before it was snapped shut. Jenny couldn't remember for the life of her where she'd heard that name before but she sure as hell knew it wasn't that recent. She had helped out a lot of kids during her school years, maybe she'd helped someone with that name before. Oh well, what did it matter, it wasn't like it was all to important. She'd put the box back in the attic and get rid of it later. There was really no reason for it being there since this family was who knows where.
"Night Jen." Derek muttered, leaving as he felt rattled for some odd reason. There was something...odd, about that house. At least he wasn't living there. He felt like he was being watched even though the kids were supposed to be long since asleep.
He had no way of knowing just who exactly was heading his way. All he was concerned about was renting a crappy motel room for the night to sleep in.
Jenny went upstairs, carrying with her the box where she would encounter her daughter having a nightmare and claiming somebody on fire was standing in her bedroom closest. But just as she thought, nobody would be there.
Hundreds of miles away, Christina Mary Winchester opened her eyes, having fallen asleep in the backseat of the impala. Now they were in a new town at a new motel to rest from the most recent hunt to research for a new one.