The Cabin in the Woods

"It's a bit cold in December to go camping, wouldn't you say? Even if the temperature is a toasty 37 above, in the day and semi-chilled that night."

Sam considered that. "Camping camping or tech camping?"

"Cabin, that's camping, right?"

He scoffed, shaking his head. "Jane, no. Staying in a cabin is a lot different than camping. The hell kind of childhood did you have?"

"Bar."

"Right… No, staying in a cabin would probably be fairly warm, providing no one got snowed in. Mr. Foulk?"

"Jerry Foulk, he had gone hunting a week before he died, so days before the sickness began. It was never reported but his wife said he had come home a little disoriented and talking about 'shrill screams'." Jane's brow furrowed as she considered her visit with the grieving widow. How Sam and Dean managed to sit through that kind of thing was beyond her, it was just heartbreaking. "She said he had been out hunting and just assumed he was tired and had been exaggerating the noises from the forest."

"Sounds similar to what I just heard." Sam said flatly, already adding their notes to their 'wall'. So far the differences between the men was longer than the similarities, but what similarities there were, were odd, even for them. "Hunting… two out of four went hunting."

"Yours stay in a cabin too?"

"No, it was still tent season."

"Odds they were hunting the same territory?"

Sam walked over to the map she had pinned to the wall, eyeballing the notes and circles she had added before finally adding one of his own, overlapping her red with blue. "I'd say they were pretty good."


Trekking through the forest, hopefully heading in the right direction, in upper Michigan, in the middle of winter… Jane figured this was probably right up next to tussling with demons on the stupidity levels. The Impala would have never made it out here so they had had to 'rent' a vehicle that would. But even the rental would only go so far, after that, it was walking. "Sam, if I freeze to death, tell Dean I love him?"

"You're not going to freeze to death Jane, you're wearing like ten layers."

Which was true, he had had to help her zip up her jacket while she tried sucking everything in. Awkward fit, but it fit, so it worked. "What the hell was Foulk out here hunting?"

"I don't want to know." Sam's voice was muffled, thanks to the scarves Jane had wrapped around his head. "But we're almost there."

There being the cabin. The gentleman who had been there when they filled out the paperwork to use the cabin had not seemed all that impressed with them. In fact, he had flat out told them they were likely to die and he wouldn't bother coming to find their corpses until the thaw. He hadn't been impressed with their questions about Foulk, and about the other victims, though he did clarify that they had all hunted the territory. He had muttered something about idiot white people and clammed up.

He was Native American, or Indian, or whichever term people felt most PC in using.

"Question?"

"What Jane?"

"If this by chance demon related, are you able to uh… kill them? Without the knife?"

Sam stopped so abruptly that Jane walked right into him, bounced, and fell backwards onto her butt. He turned, staring down at her. "Why are you asking, Jane?"

"Curious." She muttered, holding out her gloved hands. "I'm also pretty sure I'm soaked through the jeans and thermals."

"I don't know if I can or not." He admitted after a moment, sighing as he bent down to help her back up. "Going to run and tell Dean if I do?"

"He doesn't know about Alastair, as far as I know, or at least he's not mentioning it to me." She looked nervous, cursing when it began snowing again. "Move. We can talk while we go."

That was agreeable; it was too cold to stand stationary anyway. He led the way, plowing the path while she stumbled along in the shelter of his frame. "What's on your mind?"

"Does Dean know how you uh, get your powers?"

That made his blood run colder than the weather. "Do you?"

"Yes."

It was so matter of fact, and not what he was expecting, that he almost stopped again. It took him a few moments to regain use of his tongue. "H-… how?" Sam racked his brain, trying to recall if he had ever told her, which he hadn't, or if she had ever been in a position to… see. Which she also hadn't. He seriously doubted Ruby said anything, not even a snarky hint.

"You told me," Jane kept her calm tone, knowing this was murky territory. For the most part, she and Sam got along but they had some serious bumps in their road as well. "You were toasted, if that makes you feel any better."

That did not make him feel any better and he knew the implications of her knowing were going to land them both in trouble eventually. "You never told Dean?"

"He doesn't know?"

He heard the hope die in her voice and knew she hadn't. "And he better not find out."

Jane heard him, though it barely registered. The last time she hadn't told Dean what she knew about Sam being weird; Dean had lost his temper, to put it mildly. That was pre-Hell Dean, the one that hadn't beaten the tar out of her during a nightmare… she didn't want to know how pissed post-Hell Dean would be.


The first order of business once reaching the cabin was to build a fire with what was left of the wood. According to the information the not so helpful Sir had given them, there was a storage shed behind the cabin which should have been stocked. That meant going back outside eventually. Second order of business was to change into the dry thermals she had brought with her in the backpack of clothing and non-weaponry. Sam had toted all the sharp and pointy objects. Once she was changed, she began draping her wet stuff on the bare wooden furniture, noting that this was definitely for 'rustic' people because everything was bare minimum and wooden. She was banking on Sam breaking at least one of the chairs at the tiny table.

Speaking of Sam… "Sam, toss me your wet clothes." She ordered, rapping once on the bathroom door. The cabin was quaint… in its way, but it also lacked privacy minus the one bathroom and the thin wooden door. She was used to sharing a room with the brothers, plural, or her husband. Not Sam, not after the one time only, he'd been drinking, they were grieving, and the chair was lumpy but nothing happened deal. Not this Sam, this Sam was progressively becoming more moody and secretive and she knew damn well he was precariously close to labelling her a 'tattle tale'.

The door cracked open and a pile of wet clothing was tossed out.

"You're a friggin' moose." She muttered, bending down to scoop everything up, wondering just why he had to be so big. Dean was… not small, but he wasn't a giant either. The hell kind of veggies did Sam eat as a kid?

Sam emerged a few minutes later, looking both odd and downright adorable in a pair of gray thermal bottoms and matching top. He scowled when she grinned at him. "Is this really the only thing besides jeans you packed?"

"Thermals? Yep. You asked me to handle the laundry, so I did." She made a mental note to invest in some for Dean. "You look cute Sam, it's a cute look."

He snorted, perusing her in her navy blue set and then rolled his eyes. "If you say so. Examine the cabin?"

"Uh no… I've been unthawing and hanging everything up." She gestured to her handiwork. "Unless you want to go back outside in frozen denim?"

"I'll pass. Help me look."


Looking did not take overly long as the cabin wasn't very big. For the most part, nothing seemed out of the ordinary, and the two things that did seem off could be explained away rather easily.

First, there had been an arrow head, on the counter. Could have been the real thing, could have been from a tourist shop, Jane was no expert and they soon found out there was no Internet connection out here to try verifying. Secondly, there had been some marks on the back door, about waist high –on her- and only three of them, like a long scratch. Pets, or a wild animal.

"Whatever happened, it happened while they were outside." Sam said finally, dropping into the bare wooden floor and stretching his hands out before the fire.

Jane eased herself down by him, frowning slightly as she toyed with the arrowhead. "We're going hunting hunting?"

"Maybe we'll find something worth eating." He was teasing now.

"If we do… you can skin the sucker. I'll cook."