Chapter Text
Dean didn’t think anything of it when the first kid disappeared. The kid was fourteen, tall for his age, with dark hair and dark eyes, and a mean look about his mouth—even when he was smiling, like he was in the picture the news sprayed across the dinky TV he and Sam had found on the side of the road and hauled back to their apartment. Dillon Thomas, the ticker-tape under his picture said.
“Hey, Sammy.” He slapped at his brother’s side, caught his arm by accident and sent his pencil clattering across the battered coffee table they’d dragged back from the dumpster.
“What?” Sam snapped. Dean didn’t need to look to see the scowl on the kid’s face, so he didn’t, just jerked his chin toward the TV.
“You know him?”
The silence stretched, so Dean darted a glance at his baby brother. The kid was frowning at the TV, which was only to be expected from Bleeding-Heart Sam when someone was in trouble, but the tight set to his jaw wasn’t, and neither was the tight curl of his right hand.
“Sammy?” he prodded.
His brother’s expression smoothed out. “No, not really. He just,” Sam continued when Dean didn’t stop looking at him. “He picked on some of the little kids, sometimes. Him and his friends.”
Sam being a shrimp, that was a fairly alarming prospect. Of the “find the kid and beat him down” variety. “Picked on, how?”
Sam shrugged, one shouldered—the shoulder closest to Dean, even, like he wanted to shrug Dean off, which didn’t convince Dean he was wrong. “Called ‘em names. Taunted ‘em. Shoved ‘em around a little. The usual.”
“The usual” usually involved a little more than that, in Dean’s experience, and Sam’s, and Sam wasn’t meeting his eyes while he said it. “He do any of that to you?” he demanded.
“No,” Sam muttered, short and sharp, already focused back on his homework, stretching blindly for this pencil. “I took care of it,” he added. Which actually was reassuring. If not just a little bit ominous considering the kid was missing and Sammy didn’t care.
He studied Sam closely, looking for—hell if he knew what.
“Stop it, Dean,” Sam grumbled. He’d make a great mom, one day, with those eyes in the back of his head.
“What? I’m trying to decide if I should check under the bed.” He smirked when Sam frowned at him thrown by the non-sequitur. After a moment, he lifted his brows. “Kid disappears and you don’t care?”
Sam huffed, rolled his eyes. “It’s probably a prank.”
And, yeah. Dean was thinking he owed this kid a beat-down if—when—he showed back up. Give him a little taste of his own medicine. He turned back to the TV, flipped the channel looking for something that wasn’t news.
*
The second kid was a different story. It was Dillon Thomas’ younger brother, for one thing, and he’d been taken from a house that was under police surveillance—because the cops hadn’t believed Mr. Thomas wasn’t good for it.
They really didn’t believe him, after Corey disappeared. They didn’t think there was any way someone could have gotten into the house and out again without them noticing. They said the perpetrator had to have been in the house, and the kids had to still be there, too.
Dean didn’t know how he felt about the rest of the family, but he felt bad for Mrs. Thomas. It had to suck, being the only one trying to hold things together while your family tore itself apart.
It had to suck worse when the people who were supposed to protect you were the ones tearing your life apart. They kept Mr. Thomas locked up while they took the house apart. And when they didn’t find the kids there, they moved onto the yard.
Dean wondered what they’d do when they ran out of yard.
*
“What do you think happened to them?” Sam asked.
They’d kicked around the apartment after dinner, but their TV only got five channels, only two of them with decent programming after five, and—somehow—having more space than they would’ve had in a motel made it harder to stay still.
So they’d gone to the park.
There hadn’t been anyone else there, so Dean had let Sam prod him into going down the slide. Then he’d gotten Sam on the merry-go-round and spun him, fast as he could, until he’d cried uncle. He’d fallen off, bashing his arm against one of the rails when he’d dizzily tumbled back into it, which would probably bruise, so they’d moved to the swings.
Sam had actually swung for awhile, but Dean had watched the stars—watched the shadows.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Do you think their dad really killed them?” Sam watched his feet instead of Dean, busy sliding them through the dirt, drawing things Dean only half-recognized before he dragged his feet through them, erasing them. Protection sigils, maybe.
“No.”
Sam looked up at him, his face a pale oval in the dark, solemn and young, more like the little brother who’d badgered him until Dean told him monsters were real. “What do you think happened to them?”
“I don’t know.” He didn’t like it, though, couldn’t help but feel like Sam had been asking a different question entirely, couldn’t help but hear a younger version of his brother underneath, looking to him and asking, What if the monsters get us, Dean?
Not knowing wasn’t an option. He wasn’t letting the monsters get Sam.
*
Finding better information, though—
He didn’t have access to any of Dillon’s friends, not unless he hung out at the junior high and stalked the kids, and Sam had already vetoed that plan. But some of his classmates had younger siblings at the other school. He collected names, a whole slew of questions and theories, but any actual information. No one knew anything.
He stabbed at the mystery meat masquerading as meatloaf on his tray, mixed it together and tried to figure out his next step.
“Nicole,” one of the girls at his table called as an attractive brunette sat down at the end with the other cheerleaders. “Maybe she can help. Isn’t your dad the lead detective?”
“Lead detective of what?” Nicole asked, with the wariness of someone who thought they already knew the answer and didn’t want to talk about it. Dean smirked.
“The Thomas case. He is, isn’t he?”
“I guess.” She squished her meatloaf with her fork. Probably wished it was the girl she was talking to. Dean watched through his lashes, trying to remember who the news had said was leading the investigation. Wayne-something?
“Does he know anything yet?”
“I don’t know,” Nicole said, flat. “He doesn’t really talk to me. He definitely doesn’t talk to me about his job.”
“What about your mom?” one of the other girls chimed in. “Doesn’t he talk to her?”
“I don’t know,” Nicole repeated, audibly annoyed. “And I don’t care.”
“But aren’t you curious?” the first girl asked. Dean thought she might’ve had a death wish. And Sam thought he couldn’t read social cues. Nicole probably would have taken the girl’s head off if she’d had a machete. The withering look she turned on the first girl wasn’t anywhere near as effective as the machete would’ve been, but it got her point across—one of the other cheerleaders changed the subject to what they were going to wear for some upcoming Halloween party.
Which wasn’t a bad subject change, if Dean did say so himself. Which was also when he accidentally caught Nicole’s eye.
He tried a smile.
“Let’s get out of here,” she said, standing, and took her lunch tray. The rest of the group followed suit. The weedy guy and his friend who sat down in their place were much less welcome.
“I bet they were part of a cult,” the weedy guy said. “They tried to get out and—” He drew his thumb across his neck.
“That doesn’t explain how the cops didn’t see anything,” his friend argued. “There’s no way they could have missed that many people going into the Thomas’ house.”
“Who said there were that many people. Or! Or! Maybe they were all in on it.”
The friend dropped his chin and raised a skeptical eyebrow. “You think Mr. Wainsbee is part of a cult.”
“Hey!” the guy defended, coming half out of his seat in his excitement. “The cops are kind of like a cult. You know. They have the Blue Curtain, or whatever. He could belong to another one, too.”
“You’re retarded.”
“I’m just saying—”
Dean didn’t stick around to see what he was saying.
*
The gossip got a lot harder to bear when everyone remembered Dean was new in town—and not because they thought Dean had done it, though he was sure they’d work their way around to that, too, but because they started pointing fingers at his dad: Hey, isn’t Winchester new in town? The murders started about the time he showed up, didn’t they? Has anyone seen his dad? Only once. He stared at me like I was dinner.
He ditched his last class to be able to meet Sam at his school and had to duck the cops when he got there until the school actually let out so he didn’t get picked up from truancy.
Most of the kids that spilled out of the building didn’t pay Dean any mind, but a few saw him and started whispering with their friends. He caught snatches of Winchester and Dillon and payback, and put two and two together for a surprise. Turned out, Dillon’s classmates were bigger shitheads that his. Who knew?
So he wasn’t surprised when Sam emerged wearing an expression like a thundercloud had shit on his face. But he knew how to deal with it.
*
“They’re saying I had something to do with Dillon’s disappearance, Dean,” Sam said, the end train of a long, rambling diatribe that had started the moment they stepped foot in the apartment and had encompassed every moment since Sam woke. “I hired a hit man, or I lured him out of the house and chopped him into little pieces, or I drowned him or buried in the meadow, or I—I don’t know—turned him into a frog or something.”
He flung his hands up in exasperation, and when he dropped them—when he exhaled, deep and long—they took all his energy and anger with them. Frankly, Dean preferred the anger. He could help Sam work off the anger. The sorrow, though. . . .
The frown Sam turned on Dean, standing still in the living room, wasn’t sad, though—or wasn’t just sad, it was also scared. “Dean, Mrs. Carlysle saw my bruise.”
Not what he’d been expecting. He’d been expecting something more along the lines of Dean, why do my classmates think I’m weird. He hadn’t been prepared for this fly-ball from left field. Dean blinked. “So?”
“So she didn’t believe me when I said I got it on the merry-go-round playing with my brother. She wanted to know who hurt me. She told me I could tell her if I was in trouble.”
A spiel, unfortunately, they were way too familiar with, from well-meaning teachers and interfering neighbors alike. Which probably meant she’d send a report to Child Protective Services. Which meant a visit from CPS. Which would probably be a problem, even without any stupid rumors spread by pubescent children.
He scrubbed a hand through Sam’s hair. “Yeah, ok,” he said. “We’ll deal with it.”
To Sam’s skeptical look, he added, “I promise. No one’s taking us away from Dad. We’ll be fine.”
*
Then the third kid disappeared.
Brittany Swann was thirteen. Before she disappeared, she’d been at a slumber party with seven of her friends. Officially, none of them saw anything and the police were still tracking down leads. Their names weren’t released on the news or in the morning paper.
*
“You know who any of these other girls are?” he’d asked Sam on the way to school. “We need to talk to them.”
“We don’t even know if this is one of ours, Dean.” Sam had his hands shoved deep in his pockets, his shoulders up around his ears. He didn’t look up until Dean nudged him hard enough to knock him a step sideways.
“What if it is?” he said.
Sam grimaced. He nodded.
Dean really kind of wished this was something he could do for Sam, because asking a bunch of kids about other missing kids, when you were their prime suspect, wasn’t going to be anyone’s definition of fun.
*
Sam was doing his best to turn invisible by the time he slunk out of the school building. Dean didn’t know if it was that, or if the kids had lost interest, but most of them left him alone, walking past like he wasn’t there.
Dean slung an arm around his brother’s shoulders when he got close enough, earning himself a rather sickly, if grateful, smile. Then he looked at a gaggle of girls standing by the planters by the bike racks. There were eight of them, a mix of blondes and brunettes. They stood close together, like a pack.
One of them looked up at Sam. She stared, her eyes scared, then dropped her head and tucked her hair behind her ears. She nodded. A moment later, she excused herself from the group, started heading for the park. One of the other girls hurried after her, linked their arms together. She whispered something to the first girl, their heads tipped close together.
“That’s them,” Sam murmured. He started walking, pulling Dean into motion.
They kept their distance. Sam set the pace, and Dean didn’t fight him.
The park was crowded when they got there, boasting almost as many parents as children—like being out in public with their kids was going to stop the kids from being snatched from their homes. It didn’t take long to find the girls, though. They were two points of stillness in an otherwise bustling landscape, waiting for them under the spider web jungle gym.
Sam flinched. Dean wondered if he’d had the same thought Dean had: Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly. Even if they weren’t the spider.
“Did they tell you anything?”
Sam tipped his head. “They saw something that night. Something that hasn’t made it into the news.”
“Something from our side of the fence?”
Sam shrugged.
When they reached the spider web, they climbed up the other side, worked their way down slowly. Hoping, probably futilely, that anyone who saw them wouldn’t make anything of a pair of girls talking to the Winchesters.
Dean settled with his back against one of the posts, angled to be able to see the park. Sam sat cross-legged right in front of them.
“Hey,” he said, bracing his elbows on his knees with a warm smile. “Thank you for talking to us. I know it’s hard, after what happened, but we want to help. You know that, right?”
The girl on the left—he thought Sam had said her name was Sarah, earlier—glanced at him. She’d been the one to hurry after her friend, and he gave her a reassuring smile of his own. “This is crazy,” she said. “How could you possibly help?”
“Maybe we can’t,” Sam said. “But we’d like to try. Can you tell us what happened?”
“The cops told us we were crazy.”
“Not in so many words,” the other girl—Alicia, he thought—murmured.
“Right,” Sarah said. “They said we were just is shock. Traumatized. There was no way what we saw could’ve happened.” She snorted, then drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around them. “Maybe they were right.”
“Sarah,” Alicia breathed in dismay.
“It’s alright,” Sam said. “We’re not judging you. Just tell us what happened.”
For a moment, Dean didn’t think they would. Then Sarah exchanged a glance with Alicia. “Donna wanted to play a game,” Sarah said.
“She wanted to scare us,” Alicia added, still whisper soft.
“She likes to scare us. I mean, not just us, but—you know, everyone. It makes her feel better or something. I don’t know. But Jess and Tiffany go along with her. It’s harder to say no to her when they help. Anyway, that night, she wanted to play.”
“She said naughty girls couldn’t sleep over. That if we wanted to spend the night, we had to go into the bathroom and say—s-s-say—” Alicia swallowed hard, then she shook her head quickly, almost reflexively. “—three times. And he’d take the naughty ones away.”
“Who would?” Sam asked.
She shook her head again. Tears filled her eyes. “I can’t say it,” she said miserably. “What if he comes for me?” The tears spilled over and Sarah scooted into her side, pulled her into her arms.
“So Brittany went into the bathroom?” Dean prompted.
Sarah nodded. “But Brittany wasn’t even supposed to be there. It was a school night. Her mom had told her no. But Brittany told her we were working on a school project, that Mr. Finster would fail her if she didn’t help and everyone was going to be there working on it. She was afraid that if Donna made her go home, her mom would find out she’d lied. So she went.”
Alicia whimpered, burying her face against Sarah’s shoulder, and Sarah held her in place. “Donna made Alicia go in with her—for proof, she said. She turned off the bathroom lights and locked them in. We all crowded close and listened to her say it. Three times, just like she was supposed to. Then they screamed.”
“We saw a skeleton in the mirror,” Alicia mumbled. “But when Brittney turned on the light, it was gone.”
“When Donna let them out of the bathroom, Brittney started yelling at her. She hit her. Donna hit back. Then we heard something in the basement. Like a—a thump. Donna doesn’t have a dog, or a cat. And we could still hear the TV playing in Donna’s parent’s bedroom. There shouldn’t’ve been anything to thump in the basement.”
“It was horrible.”
Sarah nodded.
Dean exchanged a glance with Sam. “She wasn’t attacked in the bathroom?” Both girls shook their heads. “What was horrible?” his little brother prodded.
“The monster,” Sarah breathed. “We didn’t see it until Brittney got down the stairs. She turned around when she reached the bottom, looked up at us, but—I don’t know. She looked at something under the stairs, and then she screamed. She screamed so loud.”
“It grabbed her,” Alicia said. “It grabbed her, and then it ran. It grabbed her and she was gone.”
“Gone where?” Sam asked.
Alicia started crying. Sarah turned into her and wrapped her arms around her shoulders. Alicia hooked her arms under her shoulders, and her sleeves pulled back, baring a patch of red, raw-looking skin on her wrist.
“Sam,” he murmured.
Sam glanced at him, then followed Dean’s gaze. He leaned forward, fingers gently brushing Alicia’s shoulder as he said, “Alicia, did it touch you? Did the monster touch you?”
She nodded without pulling away from Sarah.
Sam sat back unhappily. Sarah watched them with wide, scared eyes. “Is she next?” she demanded.
“We don’t know,” Dean answered. “But we’re going to stop it. To do that, we need to know what it is. What did Brittney say in the bathroom?”
Alicia wasn’t looking at them. She had her face buried in Sarah’s neck and had started shuddering. But Sarah was, and she held his gaze firmly. Her bottom lip trembled.
“Sarah. We need to know if we’re going to protect you.”
She swallowed hard, then the tears she’d been holding at bay flooded her eyes and she nodded quickly. “I know,” she said, her lips moving but no sound coming out. “I know.” She wiped her eyes and pushed Alicia back. What she said, Dean couldn’t hear, but Alicia let her go, one hand clamped over her mouth while she watched Sarah go through her backpack.
She pulled out paper and a pen, scribbled quickly, and passed the folded page over. Then she stood, and neither Winchester tried to stop her when she pulled Alicia to her feet. “Thank you,” Sam murmured before they could leave the jungle gym, but Dean wasn’t sure they heard him, wasn’t sure they cared.
The only thing that would make a difference to them now was knowing they were safe.
He unfolded the paper, and Sam crowded close to look over his shoulder. “Bloody Bones?” Sam read. They exchanged a glance, but Dean didn’t need to ask if his brother had ever heard of it. He folded the note, and Sam took the cue to climb to his feet.
“Guess we’re going to the library,” Dean said. Joy.
Sam’s lips quirked into a little smile. “You could always call Dad, instead. He’d probably know.”
Probably.
But they still went to the library. There were some things you just did not interrupt John on a hunt to ask, and research questions they should be able to answer on their own were on that list. He slugged Sam on the shoulder.
The little bitch just laughed.
“You have to go to the library, too,” he grumbled.
Sam grinned as he slung his backpack across his shoulders. “Yeah. But I like the library.”
“Freak.”
*
Sam sweet-talked the little old librarian—who wasn’t actually all old, probably only about Dad’s age, really, and wasn’t actually all that little, either, though she was a she—into helping them pull all the material the library had on what she called Rawhead and Bloody Bones.
“It’s a little scary, boys,” she said, studying them closely before handing the books over. “Are you sure you should be reading this?”
“We kind of collect ghost stories,” Dean said, trying a bashful smile. “Dad got us started on it when his job started taking us all over the place. Sort of—sort of a way of tracking where we’ve been.”
“We’ve found some really cool stories,” Sam added, earnest and excited, and—predictably—she melted.
“All right. But don’t send your dad my way if you get nightmares. You hear?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The stories varied. Some said rawhead lived in lakes; some said it lived under the stairs or in cupboards. Some said its head was a bloody skull; some said it was a boar’s head. All agreed that it went after children who’d misbehaved.
What it didn’t say? How to kill it.
They scoured ever line of text, every reference, and not a single one mentioned how to kill it. Dean tossed the last book away, viciously satisfied when it hit the table with a sharp crack and made Sam jump. “This is stupid. We’re wasting time.”
Sam scowled. “What do you want to do, then, Dean? We can’t exactly go after it until we know how to kill it.”
“It’s a ghost, right? Or a boogeyman. Hell, maybe it’s really a boar. We’ll take rock salt and iron. One of ‘em should take care of it.”
Sam stared at him flatly, unimpressed with his logic. Honestly, Dean knew it wasn’t that simple, too, but they weren’t getting anywhere. “And if it doesn’t?” Sam demanded.
He forced a careless shrug. “We turn tail. Regroup. Come back later.”
“Come back where, Dean?” Sam pounced, sounding like he’d been waiting for it. But that, Dean had an answer for. He pulled over the paper from the night Corey Thomas had gone missing, pointing at a story that had gone unremarked in the furor of a second missing kid.
“According to this, Josiah Goldbloom saw a monster run through his field the night Corey went missing. The cops didn’t think much of it ‘cause he was drunk, and they were pretty sure the father did it, but what do you want to bet he saw the rawhead?”
Sam pulled the paper closer, read silently, then pushed it away with a grimace. “He could’ve just seen a wild animal, Dean. He said he saw it run into the corn field. He could’ve just seen the wind blowing the stalks.”
“But what if he didn’t?”
His little brother stared at him. Dean just stared back, willing Sam to fold, because checking out possibilities was what they did.
Sam sighed. “What’s past the Goldbloom place? The rawhead’s not just going to take them out into the woods.”
“No woods,” Dean answered, pulling out a map he’d found while Sam was smoozing the librarian. “Or, well, maybe. But what I’m thinking is that it headed out here.” He tapped the map. “The old Melville place.”
Sam looked up at him without lifting his head. “Melville?”
“I didn’t name him, dude. But rumor has it he hasn’t left his house in thirty years—never goes out, never lets anyone in. Not since his wife died. You wanna bet he hasn’t been too fussed with cleaning?”
Staring at the page, Sam quietly recited in a flat, creepy kind of singsong:
“Rawhead and Bloody Bones/
Steals Naughty Children from their Homes/
Takes them to his dirty den/
And they are never seen again.”
He frowned. “Yeah. Alright.”
“Alright.”
They closed up the books and stacked them. And, since Sammy was a goody-goody, carried them up to the circulation desk before heading out. Naturally, that was when the librarian stopped them.
“You boys walking home?” she asked. Her face, when they twisted around to face her, was pale. “You shouldn’t walk home alone,” she continued.
Dean opened his mouth to lie, and Sam said, “Are you alright, Mrs. Peterson? Did something happen?”
It took a minute, but she pulled a pretty horrible smile onto her face. “No. Nothing’s happened. Don’t be silly. I just don’t think you boys should walk home alone.”
She also didn’t seem to know what to do with herself.
“Did another kid go missing?” Dean asked, meeting her gaze steadily when she glanced at him, her expression saying everything she hadn’t put into words. “Who?”
Her expression broke. She swallowed hard. “Jessica Wainsbee.”
“Donna’s friend,” Sam murmured.
Dean nodded.
“Let me just get my keys,” Mrs. Peterson announced abruptly, steady where she hadn’t been before. She nodded decisively and stalked back into her office. Dean waited, mostly because he had a nasty suspicion she’d call the cops if they just disappeared. The last thing he and Sam needed were cops on their tail, particularly when they were soon going to be packing heat.
The drive to their apartment was quiet, not even broken by directions, because once they told her what apartment, she knew where she was going. She just as obviously didn’t like it. Thank God, she didn’t feel like it was her place to say anything. He got enough complaints about their living situation from Sam.
Sam, naturally, smiled sweetly at her when she pulled up at their apartment. “Thank you for the ride, Mrs. Peterson.”
“Oh, you’re welcome, sweetie. Maybe I should—” Come up. Wait until you get inside. Dean didn’t know which she was going to finish with, but Sam didn’t let her try. Just smiled and said:
“No, we’ll be alright.” He closed the door before she could try again.
Dean barely noticed. The pair climbing out of a dark sedan parked in the corner on the far side of the lot had caught his attention: one man, one woman, cheap suits, friendly smiles, no guns. The woman carried a briefcase. They moved quickly.
He caught Sam’s arm. “Let’s go, Sammy.”
“Dean and Sam Winchester!” the woman called before they could get more than a couple steps. Dean didn’t stop walking, and neither did Sam, but they turned to look.
“Who’re you?” Dean demanded, even though he knew. CPS. Damn, stupid, meddling teachers.
“My name in Cindy Trotman. This is my partner, Robbie Davenport. We’re from Child Protective Services. We need to talk to you.”
“Can’t. Sorry. It’s late. School tomorrow. You understand.”
“I’m afraid it’s important. We really can’t wait.”
He smiled, even as he pushed Sam toward the door, passed him his keys. “I’m afraid you’re really going to have to. We know our rights. We don’t want to talk to you without our dad.”
Her expression turned sour, pinched, and her gaze slipped behind him. “Sam?” she prompted gently, like she could put on sheep’s clothing and hide the fact that she’d already shown herself as a wolf.
“I don’t want to talk to you, either. Go bother Dad.”
The lock gave, and Dean piled in right on Sam’s heels, slamming the door closed before Cindy Trotman could get the bright idea to force the door. They weren’t supposed to be able to do that, but if she did it would be her word against his and Sam’s, and he wasn’t loving their chances of that going in their favor—particularly if Trotman managed to convince a judge of exigent circumstances. And if Dad was incommunicado on a hunt, they just might.
Sam was white-faced and tense beside him, his eyes wide, black holes in the dark. “What’re we going to do, now, Dean?”
*
He got the weapons duffel packed and hustled Sam out Dad’s bedroom window and across the green to the next apartment complex—because the hunt came first; because it got them out from under the watchful eye of the dreadful duo; because doing nothing but waiting for the cops to bust down their door was going to drive him insane.
Because Sam steadied, too, when they were hunting.
Dean boosted a car from the apartment parking lot because the Melville place was fifteen miles away across town. Even if they could make the trek before dawn, any cops that caught sight of them were going to have something to say about a pair of teenagers out after midnight with a duffel full of weapons, whether or not they realized the bag was full of weapons.
By the time he’d gotten the car stuck in loose dirt two tenths of a mile from the house, Dean wished he’d chosen a pick-up instead of the Datsun.
Whatever.
“You ready?” he asked.
*
They went in the front.
The house was large, gray—whether that was a deliberate choice or neglect, Dean couldn’t say in the dark—with two windows peeking out of the roof. Dean wasn’t entirely sure the porch would hold, the way it creaked under the weight, and if a girl’s life hadn’t maybe been hanging in the balance, bitch or no, he might’ve rethought going in there at night.
As it was, Dean went in with the Glock loaded with iron. Sam had the shotgun, rock salt rounds loaded, and a backup pistol tucked into his waistband ‘cause Dean was banking on this thing being corporeal.
Sam tried the door, twisting the handle carefully. He glanced at Dean—open—then shifted to the side, gave the door a push, and let Dean go in first as the door swung open. It was dark on the other side, darker than the night, and Dean clicked on his tac-light. He paused just inside the door, flicked the light switch up and down. Nothing.
Behind him, Sam’s torch clicked on.
He trailed Dean through the house, Dean tracking his progress out of the corner of his eye, by the flick of his torch, the soft sound of his step. The house creaked and groaned around them. The air was thick, musty, a pervasive scent of rot lingering under everything. Trash had collected around the furniture, blown up against it and the walls like snow drifts, ankle deep in some places.
He kinda hoped Melville’s missus had never been able to look down and see what he’d become after she died. The old sixties furniture looked worn-out and sad-looking, even when it looked brand new.
There was no movement aside from them—not in the front, not in the living room, dining room, or kitchen, not upstairs in the slant-roofed attic bedroom, not in the master bed or bath. It didn’t bode well for them finding Jessica alive, the silence, but they couldn’t give up until they were sure. Until the monster was dead.
They found two more empty rooms before Sam pushed open a door that gaped into darkness with stairs that dropped away into it. The door hit the wall. Maybe it was his imagination, but it felt like the house held its breath around them.
He exchanged a glance with Sam, could just make out the shape of his brother’s face in the referred light from his torch, the liquid gleam of his eyes, and read the same knowledge there that had settled in Dean: if the rawhead was here, they would find it down there.
Dean readjusted his grip on the Glock. Sam moved up to the door to cover him.
The stairs creaked under his weight, impossibly loud, hollow. No way anything down there didn’t know he was coming. His nerves jangled, expecting any moment for a hand to reach through the cracks, grab his ankle.
He moved more quickly despite himself, despite Dad’s voice in his ear, telling him, Steady, Dean, steady, low and familiar.
To his right, the wall extended all the way to the floor, to his left it ended after about six feet, nothing but railing a little above waist-height between him and the darkness. He swiveled to cover it, his tac light catching the edge of a shelf here, the gleam of chrome there, odds and ends and more trash, but getting swallowed up in between.
Nothing moved, no matter how hard he strained his eyes to see through the darkness or how close he listened past the rush of blood in his ears. There was just space and nothing.
He put his back to the corner, swept the stairs to settle his nerves, not exactly reassured when there was nothing under them. Maybe he’d been wrong, thinking this was the place; maybe a girl was dead now because he’d been wrong. He clenched his jaw.
“Go,” he said, knew even soft his voice would carry to his brother.
He didn’t expect the flurry of footsteps, too heavy to be Sam; didn’t expect the shadow that rose up behind the kid, caught only in the periphery of his vision; didn’t expect the sudden movement when something closed with Sam and Sam whirled. Then Sam tumbled down the steps.