Swamp Country (Chronicles)

By Simarillion

Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: Dean/OFC, Dean/Sam
Rating: overall universe rating NC-17
Beta: tecetyeintyale
Warning: incest, M/M, slash, language, violence, angst
Spoilers: Attention: spoilers up to 2x16 (Roadkill), for the sake of authenticity of this story the later episodes were ignored.
Summary: A young guy disappears in the Louisiana swamps. Sam and Dean are sent by Bobby to take care of the case. But there is more going on than they are first aware of and they are forced to re-evaluate certain things.
Disclaimer: None of the characters of the Supernatural show are mine. They all belong to The CW network and Eric Kripke. I make no money with any of this.
Author’s Note: Me writing incest? Well, apparently it does happen. Taking a small break from my usual fandom and writing a birthday gift for rotschopf. I know this is very late and I also know that you wanted an Original but, um, I hope this is alright as well.
Structure: The story will consist of three parts that have to be read together in the following order;

Part One: Haunted Water – When a young guy disappears and his girlfriend accuses a girl’s ghost of his murder, Dean and Sam have to embark on the hard task of finding a non-existent grave.
Part Two: Bell, Book and Candle – Dean wakes up in an empty Motel room and has to once more search for his brother who investigates his dreams of fire and destruction.
Part Three: Amazonian Blues – A young man who was thought to be dead reappears, confused and deranged. The two Winchester brothers have to set right what went wrong the first time around.

Posted Parts: 1 - 2


Back to previous part


Houma, Louisiana
Present Day

“So, why are we here again?” Dean sets down the diner’s menu and scans the clientele. There’s nothing like Louisiana, and he’s not quite sure if that’s a good thing or not.

“Two weeks ago, an eighteen year old guy disappeared in the swamps outside this town. He was on his way to a Halloween party with his girlfriend when they had a slight disagreement about whether or not to join their friends and he went on without her. When she finally followed him, it turns out he never showed up at the party. The police haven’t found him since then. He just disappeared.” Sam scratches his forehead. “But it gets better.”

“Better? Man, I can’t hide my excitement about all of this.” Dean mumbles.

“Dean, we promised Bobby we’d look into it since he has his hands full helping a friend of his.” There is, again, the slightly annoyed and lecturing tone and the exasperated look on his face. Sometimes, Sam is just too much, even for Dean.

“What? I can’t help but think that this is just stupid. I mean, come on, the guy probably got eaten by an alligator or something. Things like that happen, you know. Especially to stupid idiots that throw a Halloween party out in the swamps.”

Sam gives him another one of those I-am-disappointed-with-you looks, and his face disappears behind the monitor of his laptop. “Well, the police think the same you do, but there haven’t been any alligators around here for decades, and there were no traces of something dragging the guy off. Besides, the girlfriend said that he was killed.”

“By who?” Dean smiled disarmingly at the pretty red-head behind the counter and was repaid with a teasing smile in return. Maybe there was something interesting here in this town after all.

“Not by whom, by what.”

“Huh?” This finally gets Dean’s attention.

“Caroline Debonnet, the girlfriend, testified that she saw a dead girl where her boyfriend disappeared, and she said that this dead girl had killed him and tried to attack her as well but, disappeared before she could do any real harm.”

“What the fuck?” This was just plain weird. What angry spirit left before finishing its task, deed, or whatever? “Something like this happen before?”

Sam reached for his glass of coke. “No, nothing about ghosts. I checked the past of the town, and nothing about people disappearing either.”

“This gets stranger by the minute. So, what, this ghost shows up suddenly and kills a guy, scares the girl, and disappears, taking the body with him? Do you think it’s like Lake Manitoc?” The red-head behind the counter is leaving her post and making her way over to their table. Her hips sway promisingly as she saunters over.

“What can I do for you guys?” She spares a glance at Sam before focusing on Dean. She pushes her shoulders back which presents her breasts nicely with a tag on one that says ‘Trisha’.

“There are quite a lot of things that you can do for me, Trisha, but I’ll just get a cheeseburger with fries for now.” Dean leans back and lets his eyes wander up and down her body before giving her a pleased smile.

This merits not only a blush and giggle from Trisha, but also a snort and roll of his eyes from Sam. Man, his little brother is a real pain in the ass sometimes. Just because he is apparently determined to be abstinent does not mean Dean would do the same. The hell he will turn into some cranky blue-balled dick like Sam.

When Trisha deigns Sam with another glance, he orders a plate of gumbo and gives Dean another reprimanding look. Man, what is the guy’s problem?

“There is, of course, the possibility of something like Lake Manitoc but I can’t say for sure before I haven’t had the chance to check the scene and before we find out if any children disappeared or were murdered in the past.” Sam was back to scratching his forehead.

“Well, I’d say we drive out to this party location and get a good look at the place. After that, we can split up, you check out the town library and I’ll…”

“What? You’ll check out the girlfriend?” This question is followed by an amused laugh. Man his brother sucks in a totally non-pleasurable way.

“Very funny, bitch.”

“Not a problem, jerk.” Sam snickers, amused, but – thank god – he disappears behind his laptop again.

Most of the time, his little brother is an okay kind of guy, and there are even times when he’s a great guy but at times like this, Dean just wants to deck him one. If he’s not all doom and gloom, like an Evanescence song, he’s all ‘I’m more mature than you are and I’m going to make you behave.’ Dean hates this. He’s been grown up for longer than Sam has known how to tie his shoe laces, and he made it on his own for some years before they started their days as the modern day Bonnie and Clyde.

It makes him kind of wonder, what Sam would look like in a dress. Dean almost chokes on his beer as he fights back the laughter his train of thought incites. No way his freakishly tall baby brother was going to fit into a dress.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Dean looks back to the counter and continues to flirt with the red-head. Trisha was definitely going to get lucky tonight. He’s looking forward to relieving some tension. Hell yea, tonight is going to be great.

He watches Trisha until she saunters over to the kitchen and picks up two plates. Then he watches her return to their table. She sets Sam’s plate down and bends down to Dean. The angle gives him a fantastic insight into her cleavage.

“Enjoy.” Her arms squish her breasts together and make them look even better than they had before. Her breasts are not the only thing getting squished right now. Dean can feel himself getting hard as his eyes stay glued to the tanned soft skin that is so openly put on display for him. Man, he can’t wait for tonight.

“Thank you Trisha.” Sam’s voice is like a cold shower and Dean has to fight hard to keep from growling at him.

Trisha does not have such qualms though as she turns to his little brother and glares at him. Whoa, hell hath no fury. This girl apparently doesn’t like annoying baby brothers.

“You’re welcome.” The remark is hissed at Sam and she rights herself, strutting back to her place behind the counter.

Dean hopes that Sam hasn’t offended Trisha too much. He wants to fuck her tonight, after all, and if his stupid little brother messed this up, he’ll be seriously pissed off. “Man, what’s your problem?”

“What’s my problem?” Sam raises his eyebrow in what he apparently believes to be a sarcastic way, but it only makes him look like he’s trying too hard. “Dude, she was almost dropping onto your plate.”

“So?” He doesn’t get what the problem is. This Trisha chick is hot, after all.

“Just forget it.” Sam picks up his fork and stars digging through his gumbo. His face is a mask of annoyance, which, in turn, makes Dean angry.

“No, what the fuck is wrong with you? Just because you’re determined to die from blue balls doesn’t mean that I have to do the same, and if this Trisha chick digs me, I can only say that it shows she has good taste.” Dean is annoyed now. “You are such a prude sometimes. Actually, not sometimes, more like always.”

“That’s not true. I’m not a prude, but this is a diner, and I really would like to eat without some woman presenting her rack on your plate. I can really do without that.” Sam has put his fork down and is now gesturing at Dean.

“You are a guy for fuck’s sake. You’re not supposed to do without that.” Sometimes, Dean wonders what the deal with Sam is. He knows that his baby brother had been together with Jenny for some time and that the two of them definitely had had sex, so why always this shocked and prudish behaviour when some chick was presenting her goods?

“Man, Dean, there is more to life than sex, even if that concept is kind of hard for you to grasp. So you might think about using your upstairs brain more often.”

What the fuck was that supposed to mean? He uses his brain often enough. “Shut the fuck up. Sometimes you really piss me off.” He angrily stuffs some fries into his mouth and picks at the lettuce of his burger.

“Right back at you.” Is Sam’s mumbled reply. His floppy hair slips out from behind his ear and hides his forehead and eyes in the shadow it creates. His whole posture and demeanour screams kicked puppy and Dean can’t help but feel guilty.

He picks up the burger and takes a big bite. It tastes very good, but it seems to expand in his mouth and he wonders how he’s supposed to swallow it. He takes a swig from his beer bottle and washes the food down. Man, this sucks. He hates fighting with Sam because he always ends up feeling guilty, no matter who started the fight.

Dean notices Trisha trying to catch his eye, but he has lost all interest in her now. Great. No sex again. If he’s not careful he will become as blue-balled as Sam. That, or he would once more have to take a long shower in some sleazy motel bathroom.

Man, sometimes he hates his life.

The rest of the burger and the fries are eaten in silence, and after taking the last swig of his beer bottle, Dean waves at Trisha for the bill. Better get going and check the haunted place out, get some road into their case. There’s nothing else to do now anyway.

When Trisha stomps over, Sam has shoved his half-full plate away from him and is sipping on his glass of coke. He refuses to look anywhere near Dean and his eyes are fixed at something only he can see. That’s just perfect. Not only Trisha, but also Sam, is pissed off.

“There’s my number on the back. If you’re still interested, that is.” She fixes a cold glare at Sam, who, in turn, avoids looking at either Dean or Trisha.

“Thanks.” Dean places some crumpled bills on top of the receipt. “Keep the change. Bye” He gets up and strides towards the exit. It feels suspiciously like escaping. He hates running from anything. Really. And from some waitress in a Louisiana diner, none the less.

That’s him, Dean Winchester, hunter extraordinaire, bane of everything supernatural, protector of his little brother and pussy-whipped by the very same brother. Man, and there isn’t even any sex as compensation. Not that he would want that anyway, but still there ought to be some kind of reward instead his brother’s often not so pleasant presence.

He should have taken the receipt with Trisha’s number, but then Sam would have been on about it for ages. He can do without that, thank you very much.

Dean walks down the sidewalk to the Impala. It’s rather warm for this time of the year. He mentioned it to Sam when they had gotten out of the car, and the reply had been something about global warming and ice melting somewhere and El Niño and other stuff that in Dean’s opinion did not explain why it was so freaking warm. He doesn’t really care, to be honest. It had only been a comment, not the invitation to a Sam lecture.

At the car, he unlocks the door and slips inside. He hadn’t checked to see if Sam had followed him, but the door on the other side of the car opens and his brother folds his tall frame into the car. There is still tension between them, but both of them ignore it, refusing to talk about what had just happened in the diner.

The city is an interesting mixture of old and new, and if he was completely honest with himself, Dean can actually picture himself living in a place like this. If he was to settle down. But, of course, that would never happen of course.

The street leads them outside the city, and the country transforms into something right out of some kind of horror movie. Something with old run down mansions, ghosts, and Hoodoo magic. He’d definitely watch it.

They drive on in silence, Sam sometimes changing his position in the seat but never uttering a single word. Well, Dean is definitely in no hurry to change that. First of all, he can calm down himself, and second, he can avoid one of the let’s-share-our-feelings talks Sam preferred sometimes. Boy, they suck, hard time. What kind of guy would willingly talk about embarrassing shit like that? It just wasn’t in the genes of men to get all emotional.

There’s a small road leading away from the interstate, and Dean follows it into the swamps. There’s nothing but wilderness out here, and the further they get away from the interstate, the more they enter movie-land. The only thing missing is either some Hoodoo woman or a fucking alligator.

After ten more minutes of driving, they reach a small meadow. The road ends here, and Dean parks the Impala next to a huge tree. He spares a glance at Sam, but his brother stares out of the car window. Whatever.

He opens the door and gets out of the car. The air is heavy with its humidity, and Dean thinks about maybe leaving his leather jacket in the car. He thinks about it, but of course he doesn’t do it. There’s no way he’s leaving his jacket in the car. He didn’t even take it off in the Nevada desert.

Finally, Sam gets out of the car as well. He looks over the roof at Dean, and there’s something like guilt in his eyes. Dean doesn’t want to hear it. He can imagine that it will be something along the lines of ‘I’m sorry I screwed tonight’s fuck up for you.’ Well, not exactly with these words, but the meaning would be the same.

Dean shakes his head to signal Sam that he’s not willing to discuss this topic and goes to the back of the car. He unlocks the trunk, secures the hood of the lower compartment, and looks through their stuff. He stuffs a gun into the back of his jeans and pockets an EMF meter. A hand reaches into the trunk and Sam grabs another gun and a knife.

The last choice makes Dean look up, but Sam only shrugs.

He closes and locks the trunk, and off they go into the wilderness before them. There is a small path they are following. It’s apparently very old, almost hidden from the eye, but the moss, weeds, and grass have been trampled down not too long ago. In the last two weeks, to be precise.

The mosquitoes are really getting on his nerves and it’s the same with the fucking frogs and toads. For the umpteenth time, he stubs his toes on some fucking root, and the humidity makes him sweat profusely. Fucking melting ice and El Niño.

“There’s a thicket ahead.” Sam’s comment makes him look up from the ground and the stupid roots to the trees ahead.

“This job is getting better and better.” He rolls his shoulders and trudges ahead. He can see that the path into the thicket has been cleared. Branches have been cut to make more space, the earth here was trampled down even more, and there was still some police tape tied to some branches.

The vines and Spanish Moss that are woven into the branches make it even harder to see through the thicket. It's easy, though, to find the place of the abduction, since there's nothing else they can do but follow the path to their destination.

The EMF meter starts to whistle and Dean gets it out of his pocket. The reading is rather high and he stops in his tracks. “That must be one hell of a spirit.”

“Or more than one spirit.”

“Dude, don’t even think about it.” Leave it to Sam to make things worse. “Let’s just say it’s one kick-ass spirit, okay?”

“Dean, it’s the spirit of a little girl. From the EMF readings we get here, it has to be something in the league of H.H. Holmes.” Thank you Mr. Positive! Would it kill his brother to, just once, say something that was not all the-end-is-near?

“Yea, maybe it was a really crazy girl. It doesn’t necessarily mean there’s more than one spirit.” Dean holds the EMF meter in front of him as he marches on towards the scene of abduction.

Sam is right behind him, watching the EMF readings over Dean’s shoulder.

“No, it doesn’t have to mean that there’s more than one spirit, but the chances are pretty good that it’s not only one angry spirit we are dealing with.”

“Great!” He’s hot, he’s sweating, the mosquitoes are bothering him, and his brother is almost plastered to his back. “Dude, would you mind not sticking onto me like that.”

“Sorry.” The voice is annoying, and Dean wants nothing more than turn around and be in Sam’s face about it, but he notices the sudden turn the cleared path takes from the older path and he follows it toward the water without giving Sam any attitude of his own.

They end up in midst of the trees and vines at the edge of the water. There’s nothing but plants, water, earth, and markings and tapes put up by the police.

Dean crouches down and looks at the surface of the swamp. It’s still; only an occasional breeze sends the tiniest of ripples over the dark green-brown water. He scans the area with the EMF and looks for hints of what happened that night two weeks ago. There’s nothing out of the ordinary to see.

A splash gets his attention, and he watches Sam trod though the water off to the right.

“Man, I won’t let you into the Impala with muddy, wet clothes and shoes.” He gets no reaction, so he turns away from his brother.

He steps away from the cleared area and wedges into the thicket following the edge of the water in the direction of the party clearing. There are a couple of rocks overgrown with weeds and reeds, and he has to check carefully where he sets his next step. The reeds get fewer, and he arrives at a small clearing free of any plants and roots.

The EMF meter whistles again, and Dean starts exploring the place. There’s nothing out of the ordinary; only earth, leaves, and mud. Close to some roots on the other end of the bay, he notices footprints. Bare-footed footprints, and, hidden in the thicket, he can see something tangled in the roots. Carefully, he reaches in and grabs onto the thing, whatever it is.

It’s a piece of snake skin.

He looks around once more and then makes his way back through the thicket to the place where he left Sam. He finds his brother waiting. Sam raises his eyebrows as he sees Dean with the snake skin.

“I found a small clearing down there. The EMF readings are very high there. And I found this too.” He holds the snake skin out to Sam who takes it, rubbing it between his fingers.

“Hm, looks normal to me.”

“Yeah, to me, too. But I thought I’d take it with me anyway. Did you find anything?” Dean pockets the EMF meter again and knocks his boots against a tree trunk to shake the mud off.

“Yeah, I did.” Dean looks up and sees Sam holding out a silver necklace. “It was hidden under a root over there in the water. But there was nothing else I could find.”

Dean takes the piece of jewellery from Sam and pockets it. “I’ll show it to the girlfriend, maybe she recognizes it.”

They both take a last look around and then make their way back to the car.

“Dean, do you think Bobby sent us here to keep us away?” Sam has apparently been thinking about this for quite some time. His voice is pensive and Dean can feel the hair on his neck standing up.

“Why would you think that?” He turns around and takes a good look at his little brother. He knows that there are times when Sam has problems sleeping, but he had thought lately that everything had been fine in this particular department. He’s surprised when he notices dark rings under tired eyes. “What reason would Bobby have to send us away?”

“He said that he’s helping some friends and he doesn’t want us around. What do you think I’m thinking?” Sam looks at him as if he is supposed to know what’s going on in other peoples’ heads. When it becomes clear that Dean does not know what he means with this cryptic comment, he exhales heavily before explaining. “I think that Steve Wandell’s friends are with him, trying to get a lead on who killed him. I think that’s the reason why he wanted us to take this job.”

Dean doesn’t like this explanation at all. “Maybe you’re just reading too much into all of this.”

“Come on, Dean. Bobby has never asked us to work a case for him. Why now? He was so insistent on us taking this case it was like he was trying to get us as far away as he could.”

He can feel his jaw clenching, and he gets the urge to punch something. He hates this. Ever since their father had leaned closer to him, whispering those damned instructions into his ear; things had turned from bad to worse. Why couldn’t they ever get a fucking break?

“Maybe, maybe not. There’s no way to find out, and I suggest we focus on Mister Houdini here.” He turns and strolls away, clearly signalling that this conversation is over, officially.

After a second of hesitation, he hears the footsteps of his little brother following him, and in no time he has caught up to Dean. Those freaking long legs of his.

They remain silent for the rest of the trek back, and at the car, he makes Sam take off the shoes and jeans. “No way are you ditying my car with those muddy clothes of yours.”

While Sam puts some clean, dry clothes on, Dean takes the silver necklace out and studies it. It’s slightly muddy, but the silver underneath is very light and shines in the sunlight. There’s nothing fancy about it; most likely, it’s jewellery for a man.

He shoots Sam an impatient look and gets into the car. Dean wants to get back to Houma and get done with the questioning the girlfriend. He’s tired from the talk about Wandell and the implications of Bobby maybe meeting with the hunter’s friends. There’s a pillow with his name on it, and it’s getting impatient waiting.

The Impala rocks when Sam closes the trunk, and he once more folds himself into the font seat. He rubs at his eyes and sinks lower into the seat. Dean thinks that they both need a good night’s sleep. They deserve it.

As they drive back into town, Sam falls asleep. He snuffles pitifully for some time before he goes quiet. Dean glances at his brother’s relaxed face and wonders when they’d get some time to recharge their batteries. They’ve both been running on their last reserves for quite some time now.

Dean drives to the town library and parks in front of the steps that lead into the big building. He really doesn’t want to wake Sam up, but if they want to get some sleep later on, they have to get the work done now. He reaches over and lightly shakes his brother. Sam’s reaction to this is instantaneous. Sam shoots up and blinks tiredly, his head turning to find the cause of his interrupted sleep.

“We’re here, Sleeping Beauty.” He smiles encouragingly at Sam and nods at the building next to them. “Have fun, but don’t forget to come home before midnight, or else the spell will stop and everyone will see what you really look like.”

“Hardy har-har.” Sam rolls his eyes and climbs out of the car.

As he reaches in the back for his leather bag, Dean can’t help but add: “And don’t drop any shoes.”

This awards him with another eyeroll and the door being slammed in his face. At least his brother was in his normal mood again; pissed off at Dean.

He pulls out into traffic and heads into the direction of the girlfriend’s house; well, rather the house of her parents, since she still lives at home. The houses change from multi-story to family houses. He parks the Impala in front of the lawn and gets out. The house is old but well-looked after. There’s money to keep everything working properly.

Dean walks up to the front porch and climbs up to the front door. He knocks and waits for somebody to answer. There’s no car in the driveway, but he still hopes that somebody has stayed at home.

“How can I help you?” The girl is around seventeen, and her brown eyes are red-rimmed. She shuffles uncomfortably from one foot to the other, all the while studying Dean tiredly.

He smiles charmingly at her – it can never hurt to use some mojo on a woman – and holds his hand out to her. “The name’s Jack Casady. I’m a cousin of Neil’s. I wanted to ask you about what happened that night, when he disappeared.”

“I know Neil’s cousin. His name is Morgan and you’re not him.” She takes a step back and starts to close the door.

Fuck!

“Wait! Please, Carrie, I really need to talk to you.” He sees her blanch at the mention of her name. Great, now she’ll think he’s some kind of crazy stalker.

“Who the hell are you?”

At least she hasn’t closed the door completely or called the cops. That’s a good sign, right? Dean decides that the compassionate approach is the only way to proceed now. He clears his throat and locks his eyes with hers. It’s important that Carrie understands that he’s not jerking her around.

“I know what you told the police about what happened that night, and I’m convinced that what you said is true. I’m trying to find Neil’s murderer.” Her hands cling to the door, but after a short hesitation, she opens it fully and steps to the side to let him in.

She closes the door behind them and leads him to a large living room. As Dean sits down on the huge couch, she curls up in a large armchair. Her whole demeanour has changed from suspicious to hopeful, and she watches him take a look at the room.

“Why would you believe me? Nobody else does. They all think that I’m crazy or trying to get attention.” Her voice loses strength while talking.

“To be completely honest with you, I lost my girlfriend the same way. Everybody said that I was insane, delusional, high on drugs, some even said I killed her myself. When I read about your statement I wanted to help. Nobody helped me, and that can be really tough.” He hopes that this story is enough to get her talking. He would have preferred the cousin to a mourning boyfriend, but it was better than the truth.

“I’m sorry about your girlfriend.” He just nods at that and waits for her to talk.

“Neil wanted me to come with him to the Halloween party. His friends had been preparing everything for weeks. I didn’t really want to, but I didn’t want to sit at home or celebrate with my parents, either, and so I agreed to go with him. We drove down to the swamp and parked the car at some small meadow. There were a couple of cars parked there already.

“We arrived late because Neil had promised to come with me to Marianne’s party beforehand. She’s my best friend, and I promised to drop by. When we left the car, we followed some kind of path to the location of the party. It was so scary that I almost turned around. Neil got angry because I was bothering him to go with me back to the car, and then he went on without me.” Carrie’s eyes well up and she rubs at them with the back of her hand.

“I got even more scared and tried to follow him. I mean, it was so dark, I couldn’t see him, but I had seen the direction he’d walked in and there was the sound of the music. When I found the party, Neil wasn’t there. I looked around but I couldn’t find him. I was really worried because I hadn’t seen him on the way to the party. I…” She stops and once more rubs at her eyes. Dean looks around for some tissues but he can’t find any. Well, there’s nothing he can do about that now.

“I went back to the path I came from, to see if he was somewhere outside. That’s when I noticed something in the thicket. I thought I saw Neil and tried to reach him, but I only found his wallet. Suddenly I saw…” Carrie looks up and at him. “That’s when I saw her.”

“The dead girl?”

She only nods at that.

“Um, how do you know she was dead?”

“Her skin had some kind of greyish tone and looked like she was decaying. Like in ‘The Shining’, you know. But worst of all were her eyes.”

“Her eyes?” Dean tries to coax more information out her. He needs to get as much as he can. He and Sam need to know what to look for if they want to find out whose ghost killed Neil and attacked Carrie.

“They were all milky. It was horrible. She was standing there, looking at me with those blind eyes. I felt so scared. And then she reached for me. I wanted to run, but I couldn’t, so I just screamed. I screamed as loud as I could.” Carrie uncurls from the armchair and walks to the small cabinet. There she opens a drawer and gets a packet of tissues.

“What did she do then, did she hurt you?” She stayed with her back turned to him while she blotted her eyes. Dean wished it was Sam sitting here. He would hug her and get all weepy, crying with her over lost love and eternal heartbreak or something similarly schmoopy.

“She disappeared, but before that she said something to me.” Carrie returns to the armchair and curls up again.

“What did she say?”

“Too late.” There is a pregnant silence after this, and Dean just looks at her without seeing. Too late for what? To save her boyfriend? But why stay to say this and then simply disappear?

“Did she look familiar? Did you recognize her?” Dean already knows that this is not the case; otherwise, it would have been printed in the newspapers, but it can’t hurt to ask anyway.

“No. I didn’t recognize her. She was dressed really old-fashioned. Like in the days when there were still slaves and such. Her clothes were torn and dirty.” She hugs herself but keeps on talking. “She was a black girl of about twelve or thirteen, I’d say, and if the state of her clothes were anything to go by, I would assume that she had been attacked. I think she was a child slave that was killed.”

Dean raises his eyebrows and sits back. Great. If this is true, it will be almost impossible to find the girl’s grave. Maybe the bones are somewhere in the swamp, maybe they had been buried properly, but they could be just buried somewhere without a marker as well.

He rubs his forehead and concentrates once more on getting more information. “Do you know by any chance if there is some story about a slave girl being murdered in the swamp?”

“No, I don’t.” Now why doesn’t this answer surprise him?

“Okay, thanks for your help. I’ll try to get some information about the girl.” He gets up from the couch and holds his hand out to say goodbye.

“Thank you for listening and not saying that I’m crazy.” Her grip is weak and her hand is suspiciously wet, probably from her tears. “If you find anything about the girl or Neil, please tell me.”

“Sure. I’ll do that.” Dean walks towards the entrance when he remembers the silver necklace Sam found. He turns back to Carrie, who is openly crying now. “Do you by any chance recognise this?”

He holds the jewellery out for her to see.

“No, I’m sorry.” Strange, he had been sure she would identify it as her boyfriend’s.

“No problem, thanks again.” He leaves her and the house behind and walks back to his car.

In his thoughts, he’s starting to sort out the information he gathered and make sense of some things. His drive to the motel is spent thinking about the case and what they know so far. It’s not much, and what he knows is not reassuring. He hopes that Sam was able to find out more about their mystery girl.

What bothers him is the fact that the spirit had hadn’t attacked Carrie, and for some reason the necklace bothers him as well. There’s something about the whole affair that just doesn’t seem right, something he’s sure they’re missing, but he can’t figure out what it is.

They have a room at the Sugar Bowl Motel. Dean parks the car in front of their room and leans over his seat to get his duffle bag and Sam’s backpack from the back seat. He gets out, locks the car, and opens the door.

He takes the generic motel furniture in and picks the bed closer to the bathroom. First one gets to choose the bed. Sam’s backpack is left on the table, his duffle bag gets dropped onto the bed, and Dean shrugs out of his jacket. He feels the need for a nice shower and then a nap before dinner. He toes his boots off and unbuttons his jeans. His clothes get dropped right then and there without any attempt of putting them away. Let Sam bitch about his sloppy habits. There’s no way Dean will disappoint him there.

Only in his boxers, he walks into the bathroom. He grabs a large towel and puts it on the toilet lid next to the shower. When he draws the shower curtain back, he sees a large black spider sitting in the middle of the porcelain shower tub.

“What the hell?” He grabs the shower head and turns the water on, full force. The stream rushes at the spider, but it just crawls to the side. Holding the shower head directly above the ugly beast, he sweeps it down the drain. Dean 1: Spider 0.

He turns the water off and steps out of his boxers. When he wants to step into the shower, he notices the spider crawling out of the drain into the shower tub. Dean 1: Spider: 1.

He grabs the towel and slings it around his hips. Giving the black thing in his shower the Evil Eye, he looks around the bathroom for something to catch the spider with. There are two plastic cups that are wrapped in foil, but he doesn’t want to use those. In the bedroom, he finds two glasses on top of the minibar and he grabs one of those together with the laminated page of instructions what to do in the case of fire.

By the time he’s returned with his equipment, the spider has, of course, disappeared. Dean searches for it but can’t find it anywhere. After a last glance around the shower, he puts the towel back on the toilet lid and steps into the porcelain tub, closing the shower curtain behind him.

When the warm water sloshes down his body, he closes his eyes and just washes today’s sweat and grime away. He pushes all thoughts about the case away and tries to relax under the feeling of water on his skin.

He thinks of Trisha and her golden boobs and decides to relax some more. He pictures her naked with her breasts squished together by her arms. As he imagines looking down at the red head as she kneels in front of him to give him a blow job, Dean spreads his legs to get a better stance and braces one hand against the tiled wall of the shower.

He reaches down to his growing erection and thinks some more about Trisha and her soft skin and her full lips and how nicely they would look wrapped around his dick. He starts pumping, but he soon has to stop for some shower lotion as lube.

Back to business, he changes the scene in his head and pictures the waitress in his bed. He’s lying on his back, while she’s mounted on top of him, riding him. His hand on his erection speeds up, and he flicks his thumb over the sensitive head, lightly scratching over it. A shudder runs over his whole body, and he exhales softly.

What he would give for a real Trisha here in the shower. His head drops lower as he starts to pant in time with the strokes on his dick. Dream Trisha has thrown her head back, her throat a long curve, her breasts bobbing in time with her movement on top of him. He can feel the warm feeling of his orgasm starting to pool and speeds his movement up, grabbing hold of Dream Trisha’s hips and thrusting up into her.

She moans loudly and starts to massage her breasts and play with her nipples. Dean works his dick now with a furious pace as he and his dream alter-ego near their completion. The tension in his balls becomes too much, and after a last flick over the head of his dick, he groans his release while his dream self empties himself into the willing body of Dream Trisha.

He turns the water off and stays like this for a couple of seconds, catching his breath before he opens his eyes. There, right under him, sits the spider.

“Fuck!”

He climbs out and grabs the glass. Putting it on top of the spider, he decides that it has to wait until he’s dried himself and is wearing some clothes. He quickly rubs himself down and towels his hair dry. The air is so humid and warm even inside the bedroom that he starts sweating again almost at once.

Dean unzips the dufflebag and pulls out the first clean pair of jeans he can find. He doesn’t really care what he’s wearing as long as he gets some clothes on. He has to dig past his long-sleeved shirts before he finds a wrinkled T-shirt at the bottom of the bag. It’s

a stupid shirt Sam had bought for him at some souvenir shop in Kentucky. Looking up into the mirror, he sees ‘Getting lucky in Kentucky’ in gaudy colours emblazoned on his chest.

The words make him grin. Oh yea, he had definitely been lucky in Kentucky. More than once, actually. The blonde nurse had been very nice indeed, as the Korean waitress had also been. Never forget the twins. Dean feels his grin widen into a content smile, and he pads bare-footed back to the bathroom.

The black spider is sitting right under the glass where he left it. He could swear the thing is watching his every move. It gives him the creeps. He’s not afraid of spiders, but he’s seen more than enough bugs to last him for a while.

He picks up the laminated fire instructions and carefully shoves them under the glass and the spider. It starts crawling around and trying to climb the glass walls surrounding it, but it just slides back to the middle of the improvised prison.

To open the window, he has to put his prisoner aside. There are bushes outside and he releases the animal into the relative wilderness of the motel parking lot. It’s bound to find more food out there anyway, right? A slight breeze stirs the air of the room, and he decides to leave the window open.

After a last glance at the open window, he heads to his bed, pushing his duffle bag to the floor and laying down on the clean sheets. They smell of a flowery fabric softener, and he buries his face in the smallish pillow. When he reaches underneath, he notices the lack of any weapon, so he blindly reaches down to the upturned bag, digging through the contents until he feels the heft of his knife and he slips it under his pillow.

Content, Dean exhales deeply and lets his mind go blank. For some time, he just lies there, dozing, and then he falls asleep.