A/N: How 'bout this? A good ol' fashioned hunt!

Appendix D

Section I

Alex, Age 18

Gathering Answers, Gathering Questions

The Impala rumbled along the highway at a fast clip, cutting between the vacant cattle pastures.

"Okay, thanks Tim. Yeah, bye." Sam hung up his phone.

"What's the sheriff say?" Dean asked.

"Well, we can't talk to the son," said Sam. "He's catatonic. They barely got anything out of him when they found him running down the road."

"Poor kid," Dean commented. "So what did he say when they found him running down the road?"

"He said, 'They shot my parents,' and, 'The boy told me to climb out the window and run'."

Dean's brow furrowed. "'The boy'?"

"Yeah," Sam said. "If you ask me, I'd say Logan's parents have started offing people, and Logan's sticking around to try and stop them. Or at least try and help the victims."

"But why now?" Dean asked. "Why all of a sudden did they start shooting up their old house?"

"These are the first people who've lived there since Logan and his parents' murder," said Sam. "This family moved in the day before they were killed."

"So this is Jane and Don's first chance to do any kind of haunting," said Dean.

"Seems like it."

"It's so weird," said Dean. "I didn't get any EMF when we found them. I ran the whole place. Even the fridge wasn't hardly giving off anything."

"Sometimes it takes a while for souls to come back," said Sam. "Sometimes they have to be called back by something."

"Yeah, I guess," said Dean. "I did get a little blip by Logan's room before we left. But not much, and only for a second."

"Did anything happen while you were there that might have raised his spirit?" Sam asked.

"I don't think so," replied Dean. "I mean, maybe. I left Alex alone with his body for a few minutes."

"Maybe she said something," said Sam.

"Yeah, maybe."

Dean sighed. "Well, what do you think? Do we make sure it's them first or just go straight to the cemetery?"

"I don't know," Sam replied. "It's pretty obvious it's them, but I'd rather not go digging them up and torching them just to find out later we've desecrated their bodies for nothing and someone else dies.

"And I don't think we have to unearth Logan. Him we might be able to talk into crossing over."

"Or if it is his parents and we take care of them, then he might let go. If that's why he's still here; protecting people from what they're doing," said Dean. "Hell, maybe we can even talk his parents down. I think you're right; I think we need to go there first."

"Okay," said Sam.

They rode on in silence.

The house was horribly quiet. Dean felt an overwhelming sense of déjà vu as he made for the building, his stomach tightening and an anxious buzz running down his spine. He could see Alex stop and turn slowly back to him, as clear as if it had been yesterday. Even as he and Sam reached the steps, he thought he caught a trace scent of rotting flesh, but it was there and gone so fast he knew it was the remnants of a memory.

This time, the door was locked. The police had already conducted their investigation and taken away their evidence and crime scene tape, but they had closed the place up tight to fend against looters. Sam picked the deadbolt and they went inside, rock-salt-loaded guns in hand.

The interior had changed since Dean had been there. The wood panel walls and popcorn ceiling were the same, but of course the contents of the room was a mass of unopened boxes and various pieces of furniture waiting to be arranged properly. The most commonplace (and most disconcerting) objects in the room were the toys scattered about the floor. Some were a little too close to what was left of the pools of blood from the most recent murders.

Sam and Dean both pulled out their EMF readers and began sweeping the living room. Where there had been absolute silence before, now the needle jumped.

"Well, there's definitely something now," said Dean.

"Yeah," agreed Sam. "Nothing really strong, but activity for sure."

"Jane?" Dean called into the air. "Don?"

They waited, looking around.

"Mr. and Mrs. Triplet?" Sam asked the room.

Nothing, and no one, appeared.

"Why don't you see if you can talk to Logan upstairs?" said Dean. "I'll stay down here and look around, make sure they're not tethered to an object."

"You don't think you should talk to Logan?" Sam asked.

"God, no," replied Dean. "I scared the crap out of him; why would he want to talk to me? You he liked."

"Kind of, I guess," said Sam skeptically, but he headed down the hallway anyway.

"Logan's room is the last one at the end of the hall," Dean called after him.

"Got it," Sam replied over his shoulder and turned up the stairs.

Dean searched the first floor again. He hoped that having the place more bare-boned would make it easier to spot something left over from when Logan's family had lived there. If there was something holding them to this place, it had to be important enough that they would exact revenge for it. He found tiny things: Logan's height measurements on a doorframe, an old wine cork in a kitchen drawer, a homemade magnet fallen to the side of the fridge. None of them gave off anywhere near enough EMF to suggest a connection to a spirit.

Returning to the living room, Dean had just about given up when suddenly his EMF reader spiked, emitting a high-pitched whine. He looked at the device with concern. What had he just passed by?

He turned slowly, the reader still keening. There was nothing but boxes around him. He moved towards the nearest one and the reader dropped off. Not the boxes then. He stepped back and the device spiked again. Finally he turned toward the wall and inspected it. It was a plain, wood paneled wall with no adornments of any kind. Then Dean noticed the finest seam in the fake wood. He took a moment and looked down the hall just to the left of the wall; this particular spot was located directly under the stairs to the second floor.

"Is this the door to their basement?" Dean thought out loud. Then he sighed, his head tilting back and his eyes shutting briefly in exasperation. "Oh, God, do I want to know what's down there?"

He knew it didn't matter if he wanted to know or not; he had no choice. Bracing himself for whatever he was about to find, Dean dug his fingernails into the crack in the paneling.

"Don't go in there!"

A woman's voice shattered the silence in the living room, making Dean snap around. Behind him, Logan's mother had appeared. She was, of course, covered in blood, and her eyes were wide with panic.

"Okay," Dean said, holding his hands up, "I won't go in there."

"You can't have it! None of it!" she shouted.

"Oh, I'm pretty sure I don't want it," said Dean. "Certainly seems to have you all riled up."

Suddenly, Don phased into existence. He paced hectically back and forth behind his wife, a steady stream of panicked words tumbling from his mouth. "This can't have happened, shouldn't have happened, it was foolish, it was dangerous, why did I do it, what have I done, what have I done, what have I done…."

"Don't touch it!"

"All right, everyone just take a breath and try to calm down. Let's talk, okay?" said Dean, firm but careful. "Now I do not want whatever you've got in there," he pointing his thumb over his shoulder, "but can either of you at least tell me what it is?"

"It was dangerous, it's so dangerous, it'll be so dangerous if he takes it, he can't take it…."

"It's not yours! You can't have it!"

"It's keeping you here," Dean pressed, "and that isn't good for anyone: not for you, and not for the people you've killed. You've got to let me help you. Whatever it is, you've got to let it go."

"NO!"

Don disappeared from his pacing and reappeared directly behind his wife's shoulder, suddenly stalk still and solemn.

"Kill him," he said.

Jane's hand flew up in front of her, her arm outstretched, her finger pointing menacingly at Dean.

A gunshot rang out through the house.

Sam walked down the dingy hallway, slowly approaching Logan's bedroom. The door was already open and a feeble light streamed through. Sam's EMF reader began to jump notably as he entered the room. Inside was much the same as downstairs. Unopened boxes proliferated. A twin bed, a side table, and a dresser were the only pieces of furniture in the room. The bed had a sleeping bag on it that had been used already. Sam paced over to the window and found the faint footprint of a tiny tennis shoe on the sill, cut in half by the now-closed pane of glass.

"Logan? Are you there?" Sam asked, turning back to the room.

No reply.

"We know you're trying to help," he continued.

The room remained silent.

"Logan, it's Sam, Alex's uncle."

The EMF reader started wailing. At the same time, there came the faint sound of static and Logan appeared, flickering in and out of visibility before he became a coherent entity. Sam turned on a dime with a quick intake of breath. It was a shock to see the young man after so long, especially with the bullet wound in his chest, embellished with a modest circle of blood.

"Hey, kid," said Sam sadly.

Logan turned his head to look at his girlfriend's uncle. He looked absent, even slightly dazed. "Sam…."

"Logan, I am so sorry for what happened to you," Sam said. "You didn't deserve this. None of you did."

"Thanks," said Logan feebly. "For what it's worth, I… I don't remember much of it. I just remember being scared… so scared…."

"I know," said Sam. "And I hate to ask this of you, to make you relive it, but… I have to. Logan… do you know who killed you and your parents?"

Logan gazed at Sam, his eyes clouded with confusion. "I… I think his name was Nick…," he finally said.

"That's good!" said Sam brightly. "That's great, Logan, really! Do you remember his last name?"

Logan shook his head slowly, looking away. "No…."

"It's okay," said Sam. "Maybe we can figure that out another way. Can you tell me what happened?"

"There was… arguing," said Logan. "My parents… and Nick…. I don't remember what it was about…."

"Try as hard as you can," said Sam.

"It was so…," Logan's face began to tighten with fear and upset. "I only came down from my room near the end, when I heard yelling. I don't even remember the words, just how loud it was…. I just wanted it to stop. And when I came down, he had a…." Logan shut his eyes tight in grief.

"I know this is hard," said Sam, "but you're doing really well. Keep going."

"I can't…."

"You can, Logan, you can do it. Any information can help. The tiniest detail."

"Why? Why do I have to?"

"So you can have answers," said Sam. "So you can move on. We want you to be at peace, Logan. I know Alex wouldn't—,"

"Don't give up!" Logan suddenly shouted. He had snapped into full awareness, his eyes locked on Sam with a burning intensity.

"What?" Sam asked, confused.

"Don't give up!"

Then Logan phased out and reappeared directly in front of Sam, gripping him by the shoulders and shaking him.

"Don't give up! Don't give up!"

"Easy, easy!" Sam said. "We won't give up! I promise. We'll find your killer, Logan, for you and your parents."

"No! Don't give up!" Logan yelled at him. His desperation was clear, but Sam got a sense of frustration from him as well.

Then Sam heard the gunshot.

His head whipped around to look out the bedroom door. "Dean?!" he shouted.

Logan had disappeared.

Briefly glancing at the spot where the young man's ghost had been, Sam abandoned the room and ran down the stairs. As he skidded around the corner, he saw his brother laid out on the floor in front of the door to the living room, clearly in pain. Beyond stood the Triplets, face to face, Don shaking his wife by the arms and babbling in panic.

"DEAN!" Sam yelled.

The ghosts caught sight of Sam at that moment, pivoting to face him. Before either of them could react further, Sam brought his gun to bear and fired. Luckily, Jane and Don were clumped close enough together that the spray of the rock salt round caught both of them at once and they dissolved in a haze of ghostly smoke.

Sam raced down the hall and crashed to his knees at Dean's side, his heart in his throat. A bloodstain was already rapidly growing on Dean's abdomen.

"Hey!" Sam said. "Dean!"

"I'm okay," Dean croaked. "I got out of the way in time. Mostly."

Grimacing, he slowly hauled himself up into a sitting position, leaning back against the doorframe.

"Let me see," Sam said.

He hiked his brother's shirt up to inspect the wound. It certainly wasn't a scratch; the phantom bullet had gone straight through and caught a good bit of his oblique, but it was far enough to the side and below the rib cage Sam was sure it hadn't hit any organs. Nonetheless, it bled steadily both on Dean's side and down his lower back.

"It's a flesh wound," Sam confirmed. He removed his jacket to get at his outer shirt to staunch the flow of blood. "What the Hell happened?"

"Long story short—agh," he winced as Sam applied pressure to the bleed, "don't touch that friggin' hole in the wall." Dean jabbed a finger at the hidden door.

"'Hole in the wall'?" Sam's brow furrowed in puzzlement. He turned and looked where Dean had pointed and saw the paneling that had been pried ever so slightly open. "Is that a door?"

"I think it's the door to the basement," said Dean. "I think they've got something hidden down there."

"Yeah, no kidding," replied Sam. "No one makes a secret entrance like that unless they're hiding something. Do you think we need to go down there?"

"Not until we salt and burn Jane and Don," said Dean. "I barely touched the thing and Jane went ape-shit. And Don egged her on. Told her to kill me."

"Man, it must be really bad, whatever it is," said Sam. "So no talking them down then?"

"Nah, we'll never get through. It was like neither of them could hear me, they were so upset."

Sam huffed a sigh. "I guess we're headed to the cemetery tonight."

"Hey," Dean said. "Did Logan show?"

"Yeah," Sam said. "Yeah, he showed. I'll tell you about it after we get the Hell out of here. Come on; let's get you sewed up."

Sam stood and offered his brother a hand. Dean grunted as he made the effort to get to his feet, holding Sam's shirt to his side with his free hand. They made their way out of the house and back to the Impala where Sam got to stitching.