Chapter Text
Sam leaned back in the booth, crossing his arms as he scowled at his brother. Dean was staring, mesmerized, into the depths of his coffee mug like it might unravel the mysteries of the universe if he watched it long enough. Sam nudged his brother’s foot with a little kick. Dean jumped and straightened.
“Dude, were you listening to a word I just said?”
Dean blinked then frowned at him. “Yeah, yeah,” he said slowly. “A bunch of people got sick. What makes it our kind of deal?”
Sam shook his head, rolling his eyes. “Yeah, Dean. People are getting sick. First a half dozen, then nearly twenty. Latest count is up to nearly sixty. They all came down with similar patterns. They get sick for a few days, seem to recover, then turn up dead.”
“Like I said, sick. I’m not seeing anything that screams supernatural mojo.”
“That’s because you haven’t been reading hushed up CDC and coroner reports. The ways these people are dying? Not exactly normal.”
Dean sighed and leaned forward to rest his elbows on the table. “Not normal how?”
Sam blinked. Dean sounded tired, defeated almost. He had huge circles under his eyes and his hair was more messy than styled this morning. He looked like he hadn’t slept a wink the night before. To be fair, they’d gotten in late from a salt and burn, but Dean was usually the chipper one. Sam hated how much of a morning person Dean was, even on three hours of sleep.
Dean made an impatient sound, snapping Sam back to the present. He cleared his throat. “They’re dying in freak accidents or under unexplainable circumstances. Fires that started out of nowhere, drowning on dry land, struck by lightning on a clear afternoon, freezing to death in the middle of August. You name it, it’s happened in this town.”
Dean’s eyes narrowed. “Supernatural hotspot or monster?”
Sam shrugged, leaning forward to tug his laptop back towards himself. “No idea. Maybe witchcraft gone wrong? Kinda sounds like a curse that’s gotten out of hand.”
Dean scrubbed his hands over his face. “Fine,” he said. “Mystery death town it is.” He pulled out his wallet and threw a few bills on the table. With that he stood and drained the last of his coffee.
Sam finished the last bite of his breakfast sandwich as he closed his laptop and tucked it away in his bag. He followed Dean out and to the car. Dean didn’t say anything as he climbed in and started the engine.
Sam wanted to say something. Dean was obviously exhausted, but he knew pointing it out would just make Dean prickly and annoyed. Instead, Sam dug through the cassette box and pulled out a Metallica tape. Dean cranked the volume up as he pulled out of the lot.
Parrish, Alabama was almost a thirteen hour drive. They spent most of that time in silence, only the thrum of rock music beating steadily away in the background broke the monotony of the long trip.
Sam was respecting the mood in the car. He knew when to keep his mouth shut, and Dean seemed to be in the sort of mood where conversation would be met with hostility at best. Instead, he put on a true crime podcast and worked through a translation for a hunter friend who had gotten in over his head on the research side of his hunt. It was a dozen pages of dense text in Aramaic that even he was having trouble pinning down in some spots. He also had to keep taking breaks to stare out the window because working on the laptop while driving gave him a headache.
Sam was deep into the final paragraphs of his translation when Dean smacked his shoulder and nodded at the road sign they were passing. “We should be there in about half an hour.”
Sam nodded and shifted so he could stretch his cramped frame a little. The confines of the car along with his hunched posture over the laptop had left his spine feeling like one big ache. As he arched his back and lifted his arms over his head, he remember that there would be one very big barrier to getting into town.
“Do you have your fed badge,” Sam asked. “Last thing I read said they were putting the town under quarantine, only officials in or out. We’ll probably have to show credentials to get in.”
Dean waved towards the glove box. “In there.” After a second he seemed to catch up to what Sam had said. He shot him a sideways glance, frown on his face. “Wait, quarantine? I thought this was probably a spell. Should we be worried about catching whatever this is?”
Sam frowned as he clicked the button and the glove compartment opened. “I don’t know what this is. It doesn’t sound like a normal illness though. I’d guess we’re safe enough as long as we’re careful. About all the CDC has been able to tell is that it isn’t airborne.”
Dean gave Sam a sharp glance. “And what’s to keep us from getting sick?”
Sam shrugged and held out Dean’s FBI badge. “If it’s a curse, like we think, the damage is probably already done. If it’s some kind of monster, there’s really not a lot we can do besides go in and kill it. Look, we’ve come all this way. Do you want to check it out or not?”
Dean scowled at the road, glaring out the window for a long moment. Finally he huffed. “Yeah, okay. Somebody’s got to look into this,” he said, grabbing his badge and tucking it into his jacket pocket. “But if I get sick, I’m blaming you.”
Sam rolled his eyes as he settled back into his seat and went back to watching the scenery roll by.
It took them another twenty minutes to find the roadblock at the town limits. Two cop cars were sitting across the road right next to a tidy little wooden sign that read, “Welcome to Parrish.”
Dean slowed and rolled down his window as the two officers got out of their cars to make their way over. The younger of the two looked like he couldn’t have been on the force for more than a couple of months. His face was still baby soft and he carried himself almost self-consciously. The older man was greying and had a mustache that seemed to dominate the entirety of his face. Sam was reminded of some cartoon villain and had to keep from grinning at the man as he strolled up to their window.
“Sorry, mister. Town’s closed. You’ll have to head back to Old Tuscaloosa and go the long way around.”
Dean shook his head. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his badge, flashing it at the officers. “We’re on official business.”
The younger of the two officers frowned at the badge. “What’s the FBI want with a small town epidemic?”
Dean scowled up at him. “Classified. But come on, man. What do you think we’d want with it?”
“You think it’s some kind of terrorist thing?”
Dean shrugged. “Who knows? All I know is it’s got some powerful people pretty spooked. Now what do you say, fellas? Gonna let us in? We’ve be driving for ages and I really just want a shower.”
The older officer nodded to his partner. “Suit yourself.” He turned and went back to his car. In a moment, he was backing off the road so Dean could drive past him. Dean gave them a little salute as he rolled by.
“That was easier than I expected,” Dean said.
Sam shrugged. “Why would anyone willingly enter a quarantine area if they weren’t supposed to be there in the first place?”
Ten minutes later, they were pulling into Parrish Nights Motel. Sam nearly launched himself from the car. It took a few moments before he could even stand up straight. He sighed in relief as his back cracked and the tension eased out of his tight muscles. Sam couldn’t say he hates cross country drives, he did them too often for that, but long ones were murder on his back. He felt older every time they had to do these long hauls.
The motel itself was quaint. It looked quiet and well kept, nestled up against a small stand of pine trees. The building was small, maybe only enough space for a dozen rooms and was obviously old, but the whole place had a homely feel to it. There was a well-kept flowerbed at the front and a few picnic benches under a cluster of trees at the back.
Together, Sam and Dean made their way into the tidy front office. The place was clean and neat, light pouring in from wide windows set along the front wall. Sam approached the empty desk, intending to ring the little service bell, but stopped short when he realized there was already someone on the floor behind the counter.
It was a boy, maybe nine years old, with a head full of curly brown hair and more freckles than any one person should have. He looked up at Sam as surprised by their sudden appearance as they were to find him there.
After a moment, the kid sprang to his feet. “Are you wanting a room?”
“Uh,” Sam said. “Yeah.”
The kid nodded to himself, then dashed off along the counter to a white, wooden door along the back wall. He yanked it open and hollered, “Mrs. Clara! You got customers!”
He turned and grinned at them. “Mrs. Clara will be here soon. We weren’t expecting anybody. Uncle David says there’s no point in staying open, but she says she likes it.”
Sam nodded along. He had no idea what to say. The kid seemed cute, but Sam had very little skill with small children. Dean, however, was smiling at the boy. “Sounds like Mrs. Clara’s was right after all.”
“Yup! She’s nice. They’ve been…”
He trailed off as a woman with grey hair and a kindly face came into the room. She glared at the boy. “Chris, I swear. Don’t go yelling like some hooligan, especially not in front of the guests.”
Chris hung his head. “Sorry.”
Mrs. Clara patted his shoulder. “It’s okay, dear. Why don’t you go wash up? It’s almost diner time.”
Chris took off towards the door. The woman turned back to them and gave them a small smile. “Sorry about him. He’s staying with us because…well, anyway. You gentlemen looking for some rooms?”
Dean nodded. “Yeah, we’re here on business. Glad to find you open, actually.”
Mrs. Clara waived the comment off. “Course I’m open. Folks gotta have somewhere to sleep.”
“Can’t imagine business has been great lately,” Sam observed.
She sighed. “No. No, it hasn’t.” Here she paused and shook herself. “But still, we get by.”
As she said this, she pulled on a pair of glasses from where they hung around her neck and started typing on the computer. “One room or two?”
“A double if you’ve got it.”
She made a noise in the affirmative. “No smoking. Feel free to use the picnic area out back. We always have a few breakfast goodies around in the morning if you’d like to stop back by. It’s not a full spread, but I like to bake so there’s usually some sort of treat around.”
“How could we pass that up?” Dean said, eyes bright for the first time that day.
The promise of breakfast goodies aside, both men were tired and ready to just get to their room. They made their excuses and went to grab their stuff from the car. Together they made their way into their home for the next few days. Dean fell onto the first bed and dropped his bag by his feet.
Sam threw his own bag onto the second bed. “So where do you want to start,” he said, already trying to piece together the best plan of action. “Police station? Ground zero?”
Dean seemed to droop at the question. “Come on, man. I’m beat. The supernatural super bug will still be there in the morning. Let’s just get some grub and watch crap tv. It’s too late to hit up the police station tonight. Without that we got nothing on where to start talking to people.”
Sam shrugged. “I’m pretty sure I know which family was hit first. We should drive up there and take a look, see if anything jumps out at us.”
Dean crossed is arms over his chest. “Sam, I’m running on two hours of sleep. I just drove fourteen hours to come to a quarantined town. I’m bruised in about twenty different places from last night’s little adventure. You want to jump right in, be my guest, fill me in in the morning, but I for one am going to turn in early tonight.”
Sam opened his mouth to argue, but one look at Dean changed his mind. Everything seemed to sag around him, from his dropping eyes to his sagging posture. Finally, Sam nodded. “Yeah sure. It can wait till the morning.”
Dean nodded and grabbed his keys back up. “Wanna go find some dinner?”