Chapter Text
"Anyway, I hate Wisconsin!" Sam threw himself back on his seat with a mighty huff, and stared gloomily out the window at the river that ran beside the rural highway. No-one ever listened to him.
"You liked Michigan just fine, and Wisconsin's right next door," Dad replied mildly, as he had every time Sam had launched the same futile diatribe over the last week.
Dean twisted around in the front seat to look . "Remember, Sammy? We lived across from that place with those three big dogs and they paid us a buck-fifty a day to walk them? They were cool dogs."
"There won't be cool dogs in Wisconsin. Anyway, you kept the buck and only gave me fifty cents." Sam was determined to let nothing placate him.
"I walked two dogs and you could only hold onto one, short-ass."
"Language, Dean!"
"Sorry, Dad. It was a fair division of labor."
"A 'fair division of labor' is me driving and you watching the map, Dean-o. How long until the turnoff for Townsend?" Dad was in a good mood, as he usually was at the start of a hunt. The anniversary of their mother's death was just a few days behind them, but Sam had been watching him closely, and it looked like this time, he'd left his grief behind in Tulsa and taken to the open road with a cleared mind and heart.
Dean straightened out the slightly crumpled map and ran his hand over the various markings that they had added. "About three miles, then only another mile to the town. What's up first? These houses have two deaths each, but the most recent death is just one guy."
"We're checking that out. Look at the dates – someone dies, then someone else in their household dies two weeks later, to the day." Dad glanced in the mirror at Sam, who held up the journal to read from the most recent page.
"And look, Dad!" Sam couldn't resist a puzzle, even when he had intended to sulk the whole time they were in Wisconsin. "Each death is two weeks apart. This guy, Mr Kovacs, dies first, then his wife, then his cousin, then her dad, then this other guy. But they're all pretty old, like forty-nine and fifty-seven and sixty. Maybe they just died of being old?"
Dad grinned and shook his head slightly. "Does that explain the two week difference, Sammy? Tell me how long we've got until the next victim dies."
"Um, Mr Walker died on October 27th, today is November 6th, so we've got until the 10th, next Wednesday. That's not long, Dad."
"That's why we're going to Mr Walker's home first – anyone else living there is at risk."
Dean folded the map into uneven rectangles until just the town was showing. "Left at the intersection, Dad."
The Impala swept around the curve and the landscape abruptly changed from woodland to the scrubby outskirts of Townsend. It had a large number of motels for such a small town, but the signs advertising bait sales and water ski rental helped explain that. November was well past tourist season, though, and most of the motel parking lots looked empty, though the town itself was busy with locals in their big, muddy SUVs. A few people gave the Impala curious glances, but, unlike some rural towns they had visited, no-one seemed overtly hostile.
Dean leaned over the front seat and put his hand over the journal page that Sam was reading. "Sammy! Quick quiz! Who are we and what are we doing here?" Since Sam had discovered his father's true occupation, all three Winchesters had participated in creating their false identities.
Sam rolled his eyes and sighed dramatically, but reeled off their cover story easily. As much as all the moving around annoyed him, he didn't want to be left out. "We're the Wells family, Dad's an EPA inspector, normally our grandma looks after us when he's sent out of town to work, but she had to have an operation on her knee so we had to come with him this time."
"Good boy." Dad slowed the car, looking for the turn onto Nicolet Road, towards the lake. "In a town this size, gossip is going to spread faster than light. Keep your eyes and ears open, and you might pick up something relevant to the job."
Dean flopped back into his seat and eyed his dad suspiciously. "Does that mean we have to go to school?"
Dad spotted the turn and swung them onto Nicolet Road, leading back towards the lake. "Yes, Dean. I'll enroll you on Monday."
Dean's groan was almost drowned out by Sam's cheer as Dad pulled the car to a halt outside a small but fairly new brick house in a row of mostly wooden cabins. Most of the cabins looked empty, but a few, including this one, had an SUV or two in the drive and smoke streaming from the chimney. Dad stretched, then got out of the car, going around to the trunk to retrieve the car battery-sized EMF meter.
The second Dad had moved away from the Impala, Dean turned in his seat and scowled at Sam. "Don't be such a suck-up about school. Next thing you know, he'll dump us at Pastor Jim's or something. Forever."
"He will not! Anyway, it's not even school I care about, it's the school library. The only book I've got left from that Salvation Army place is a girl book."
"Don't read so fast, then, dorkface. Besides, I thought you'd like a girl book."
Sam flung himself lengthwise onto the back seat so he could kick the back of Dean's seat as hard as possible, although he'd never dare do it while his dad was present. "Shut up, jerk. It was a whole box of books for a dollar! I didn't know that stupid book was in the box!"
Dean punched Sam in the shin then ducked out of the way of Sam's flailing foot, cunningly winding down the window so that their dad would overhear any outraged wails. Sam subsided, grumbling, then slid over the top of the front seat to sit next to Dean and watch their dad through the windshield.
At the other end of the short driveway, Dad rang the doorbell and waited. The curtains twitched, though there was some hesitation before the person inside approached the door. Dean and Sam followed their dad's gaze as he checked out the outside of the home – as far as the boys could tell, there were no markings of any kind, protective or harmful, no signs of violence or attempted intrusions. Everything appeared well-kept but somewhat weathered. The only peculiarity in such a tidy yard was a long black streak of soot down the outside of the red brick chimney. The wind off the lake was strong, though, and so it wasn't so strange that people might be reluctant to go up a ladder and clean it at this time of year. That same sharp wind also carried Dad's conversation straight to the car, and the boys listened carefully.
The door was flung open by a solid, bearded man, about Dad's height but heavier, with a round, wary face and cold blue eyes.
"Who the hell are you?" the man rasped, his voice tired and his posture somewhere between aggression and defeat.
"John Wells, I'm with the EPA. I believe this is the residence of a Mr Rick Walker?"
"If you're looking for Rick, you're a week late. He's dead." The man started to close the door.
"That's the purpose of my visit, Mr…?"
"Doctor. Doctor Steven Young. I'm Rick's partner, as you probably didn't see in the obituary."
Dad's surprise must have shown on his face, because Dr Young's expression became slightly less hostile, though he remained tense.
"You didn't know Rick was gay? I thought you must be here because of those ridiculous AIDS rumors."
Dad recovered quickly. "Doctor Young, I can assure you that if Mr Walker had died of AIDS, there would be no need for the EPA to be investigating his death, or the recent deaths of a number of other people in Townsend."
"You think something environmental might have contributed?"
"Yes, sir, and you may be at risk yourself. I would appreciate a look around your home, and if you would answer a few questions. Was this Mr Walker's primary residence?"
Dr Young stepped away from the door and gestured Dad inside, and spotted the two boys in the Impala as he did so. "You bring kids on these investigations?"
"My wife died some years ago, and their grandmother…" Dad's voice was cut off as the door closed behind them.
Sam bounced on the front seat. "That was so cool! That doctor let Dad right into the house!"
"Dude, he's a gay dude. He probably thinks Dad is hot." Dean affected a cool pose, but he couldn't suppress his wriggle of horror at the idea of some guy finding his dad attractive.
"Ew!" Sam made satisfyingly elaborate barfing gestures. "Not Dad! But hey, Dean, do you think that's the guy that's gonna die next week?"
"Yeah, maybe. But Dad will work it out before whatever kind of monster it is gets him, don't worry. And we'll help, even if Dad does stick us in school all freakin' day. Here, Sammy, check out this list of motels, see which one is cheapest and still inside town, 'cos we'll probably be walking to school."
By the time Dad got back to the car, the boys had retrieved coats and a blanket from the trunk, and were sitting under the blanket, sharing Dean's Walkman. Although it was barely past one, the sun was already dipping behind the tallest pine trees and the air was chill, even with the Impala protecting them from the wind. Dad opened the driver's door.
"You good there, boys?"
"Sure, Dad. Where to now?" Dean shoved Sam and the blanket up over the back of the seat and wound up the cord of his headphones.
"Don't push me!" Sam complained, slightly sleepy, but finished the climb into the backseat and wrapped himself up in the blanket again, his cheeks rosy.
"Don't push him, Dean. If you've got a motel picked, we'll check in, then I'll go talk to some more people and check out the school."
"That motel with the balconies we drove past on the way in looks the best." Dean passed his Walkman back to Sam. "So you think we're going to be here a little while? Do you know what it is yet?"
Dad swung the Impala into a U-turn and drove back towards town. "I've got a few ideas, but we're going to need more information. The EMF meter was going crazy in there, especially around the fireplace. I could track a path straight from there to Rick Walker's bed."
"A succubus? Or would it have to be an incubus?"
"Listening in, were you, Dean? It could be – it sure sounded like the life was drained from him over a week or so – but I don't know yet. And there's male and female victims, remember. Doctor Young doesn't show any signs of being touched by it, though."
"Isn't that good?" Sam piped up, his brow creased in concentration. It was hard to pick up all this information when he'd nearly been asleep just a minute earlier.
Dean rolled his eyes. "No, Sammy! Well, it's good for Doctor Young, I guess. It just means that there's another victim somewhere, and it could be anyone, and we have to find them before Wednesday."
"Doctor Young works in the ER at the county hospital. He told me that the first of the deaths, Darrell Kovacs, was from lung cancer. He took six months to die, and it was all monitored by doctors. Nothing weird about it. All the other deaths are linked to him, though. Mostly family, but Walker was his business partner and fishing buddy." Dad turned the Impala back onto the main road, driving past the array of small stores – a bait shop, a tiny supermarket, a drugstore, two diners.
"Did Doctor Young see anything weird? Even if it didn't affect him?" Dean frowned.
"I don't think so. It seemed that each of the victims, starting with Mrs Kovacs, got tired, then frail and bedridden, then died after about two weeks. The doctors ran a lot of tests, but nothing showed up." Dad frowned too, intrigued by the puzzle, then bumped the car up the driveway and into the parking lot of the motel that Dean and Sam had chosen.
The motel looked like it had been built in the 1960s or early 1970s – the Winchesters were motel connoisseurs – but it had been recently painted and looked clean and well-kept. It was a two-story building in an L-shape, with a balcony running the length of the upper story, and criss-crossed latticework screens shielding the downstairs rooms from the parking lot. The lot had only two cars in it – both with Wisconsin plates – and the rumble of the Impala was enough to bring a short, stocky woman scurrying out of reception with a wave and cheerful smile.
"Welcome to Townsend!"
"Thank you," Dad replied, stepping out of the car while Dean and Sam got their belongings together. "My boys and I will be staying for at least a week, I think, so we appreciate the welcome."
"Oh, come through to reception, I'll get you checked in. I'm Shawna, I run this place with my husband, so if you need anything, just call. We don't get too many tourists at this time of year."
"No, ma'am, I'm actually working, but family circumstances meant that I had to bring my sons along." Dad nodded at the boys, and they scrambled out of the car to follow Shawna to reception. "I'm with the EPA, in fact. John Wells, and these are my sons, Dean and Sam."
Shawna led them into reception, where Sam's eyes immediately fixed on a big jar of candy on her desk.
"Sure, you take a couple, young man. If it's all right with your father, that is." Dad gestured for him to go ahead, and each boy took a small handful of wrapped candies. "Now, you'll be wanting a room with a kitchenette? I'm sorry to say we don't operate the restaurant at this time of year, but we can always whip up a breakfast or some sandwiches if needed."
"A kitchenette would be very helpful, ma'am." Dad signed the register on the desk, and got out his credit card while Sam and Dean tried not to chew too loudly.
"You don't need to charge this to the government? I've got the form here somewhere. And call me Shawna, you're making me feel old."
"My apologies, Shawna." Sam looked sideways at Dean and made a tiny gagging noise, strictly for Dean's ears, but still got a hard over-the-shoulder glare from his dad. "I'm not a federal employee – I contract to the EPA and I'll claim my expenses when the job is finished. No need for you to send anything off." Dad happily used fake paperwork on overnight jobs, but never on jobs where they might be staying longer.
Shawna ran the card through the terminal and all three Winchesters held their breath for a moment, waiting to see if it would go through. Many of the motels out in the sticks still used the old-fashioned manual imprinter to collect credit card details at check-in, but obviously Shawna had upgraded her service. The terminal beeped and rattled out a docket without problems, though, and Dad signed it.
"Thank you, Mr Wells. Here's your key – I've put you in room 21, right down at the end, where it's nice and quiet. Do you need any help with your bags?"
"No, thank you, Shawna. I've got some boys here who are spoiling for a bit of work."
The boys in question sighed, but both of them were excited to be moving in. Sam clambered back into the Impala and started collecting his books and toys, his pillow, Dean's box of cassette tapes and a bag of trash to throw out, while Dean and Dad carried their bags into the ground floor room. It took a few trips, two of them involving weapons stashed under extra blankets, before they were settled, their breath puffing white in the chilly afternoon. This motel room was more like a little apartment than the single rooms they usually rented at motels – there was a small main room with a tiny kitchen, a small round table and a sofa in front of the TV, and a separate bedroom off each side. Sam sprinted for the room on the left, only to find that it held a double bed, and Dean had already broken right, into the room with two single beds, claiming the one nearest the door.
"Shotgun!" Dean crowed.
"You can't call shotgun on beds! I want that one!"
Dean stretched out on his bed with an exaggerated sigh of comfort. "No way, Sammy-boy, I got here first. And you only want it because I called it."
"Do not!" Sam lied in outrage.
"Hey, at least we're not sharing the fold-out sofa this time." Dean leaned over to Sam, and whispered, "Did you see that the TV stand's got wheels? When Dad's working, I'll roll the TV in here and you can watch TV in bed."
"Really? Cool!" Sam was rather impressed with this proposition, as it held all the benefits of being sick without the inconvenience of actually being sick. "Will you make me Jell-O?"
"Sure, okay, if there's some in the supplies. Now go get your bag and unpack. And don't put your dirty laundry in with my clean stuff this time!"
Sam hurried off to get his duffel bag, and grabbed Dean's, too. Their dad was already penciling protective symbols above the doorframe, so focused on his task that Sam had to drag the bags in a wide circle around him to get them back to the bedroom. Dean had got up from his bed-testing and was checking the built-in closet.
"Are you looking for curses? It was only one time that there really was that skeleton in the closet, and that wasn't in a motel." Sam started unpacking, shoving clothes into the two-drawer nightstand.
"Nah, Sam, phone numbers. Motels like this, they all get local girls as cleaners in summer. Hot local girls." Dean's bold claim was immediately undermined as he continued to follow their dad's routine checklist, looking under the beds next, then going to get the bag of rock salt for the small, high-up window.
Dad had finished with the wards. "Dean, get the salt lines down. I'm going to see who I need to talk to about enrolling you in school, then see about interviewing these other families. I'll be back by dinner time."
"Okay, Dad, just remember Sam's dinner time is six o'clock, not midnight again. I don't want him getting cranky." Dean ducked an affectionate thump to the shoulder and, as soon as his dad was out the door, checked the clearance under the door and put down a line that wouldn't be broken by the door being opened. The Impala rumbled away, and Dean carefully walked around the room, pouring a line of salt at every doorway and windowsill.
Sam abandoned his unpacking within minutes to hurl himself on the sofa and turn on the TV, much missed after three days in the car. There weren't many channels, though, and most of them were showing boring daytime programming, all chat shows and soaps.
"These channels suck. In Tulsa we had cable."
Dean threw a bundle of blankets at his brother. "Go put these on the beds, it's gonna get cold tonight. And Tulsa sucked, even with the cable."
Sam wriggled out from under the pile and glared. "It did not! I liked my school there. I had two friends."
"Blankets, Sammy. Then we can check if there's any free food with the free coffee." Dean lined up the guns and knives on the round Formica table then took their toothbrushes into the bathroom and set them in the cracked coffee mug with the city seal of Snohomish on the side, a mug they'd somehow kept for years.
After the unpacking tasks were done, Dean checked out the kitchenette – hotplate, microwave, bar fridge – and found a small packet of complimentary cookies in a little wicker basket with coffee and sugar sachets.
"Here you go, Sammy! Chocolate chip and everything!" Dean took one of the small, dry cookies and gave the other one to Sam, who cheerfully stuffed it in his mouth and chewed loudly. As Sam ate, Dean burrowed into his duffel and pulled out a video cassette. "Look what accidentally fell into my bag in Tulsa! Terminator 2!"
"Wow, cool! Put it on!" Both boys had already watched the video several times in various motels, but that was no barrier to seeing it again, especially as now they had their own copy. Sam settled down on the sofa, licking cookie crumbs from the corners of his mouth, and Dean sat himself at the table with the guns, and began the checking and cleaning ritual that was the backing track to so many movies that they had seen.
Dad made it back by six-thirty, which was pretty good by his standards, with a folder full of information and a pensive look on his face. He scanned the room, but Dean's salt lines were reliable as ever – he'd even put circles around the heating vents.
"Dad, how'd it go?" Dean was on his feet as Dad came through the door, grinning at the sight of him. Sam was snoozing on the sofa, but woke up blearily at the conversation.
"Good, Dean. There were more signs of something unnatural being involved with the deaths – the EMF meter picked up traces both at the other houses, too. And I may have found the next victim."
"Did you get school organized?" Sam interjected.
"Yeah, Sammy, don't worry. I caught up with the principal at her home, and you'll be at school on Monday. Dean, you'll have to be in eighth grade again. Now, get your coats on and we can go get dinner."
The boys scrambled to get their coats and shoes on, and Dad put his folder of notes on the table, next to the neat line of cleaned guns and sharpened knives.
"Why's Dean in eighth grade? He finished it already," Sam asked as they got back into the Impala. It was entirely dark and bitter cold outside, but the Impala was parked right outside the door and it was just a quick scurry from the motel room to the car.
"Don't worry, Sammy, I don't mind. Eighth grade will be way better second time around, now that I know it all."
"The local school only goes to eighth grade, and I don't want Dean coming home from the high school on the bus in the dark. Whatever this creature is – and I have a few ideas – it only attacks at night. I'd rather have the two of you walking home together."
"Good plan!" Dean was suspiciously enthusiastic about the prospect of repeating a year, and both Dad and Sam looked at him with interest. "Yeah, well, girls like older guys, don't they?"
"Dean! They're eighth graders!" Dad bristled.
"So am I!" Dean's bravado faded quickly. "It's okay, Dad, little towns like this never welcome a new kid anyway, not for a few weeks, and we might be gone by then."
"You know I expect you to be a gentleman, Dean." Dad's voice was stern, and both boys could see their chances of a nice meal at a diner followed by ice cream disappearing fast.
Sam volunteered a distraction. "Who's the next victim, Dad? You said you might have found out who it is? Are they old?" Sam held his breath for a second, then his dad decided to take the bait.
"Not at all. Her name is Heather Kovacs, and she's a college student. Her father was Darrell Kovacs, the one who died of lung cancer, and her mother was the first person to fade away and die. Heather's in town settling their estate."
"How do you know it's her?" Dean was sitting up straight in the front seat, on his best behavior and obviously hoping to hear information about the hunt rather than yet another lecture on manners. "Both her parents died, she can't really look her best right now. And is it this Kovacs guy haunting them?"
Dad parked the car in the main street, outside the aptly named Main Street Diner. "She does look ill, but it's not just that. She looks 40, not 20 or so. Her skin is pale and papery, and she couldn't concentrate long enough to finish sentences when she was talking to me. She had the lights on all over the house, but she was still bumping into things, like she couldn't see clearly, and her eyes looked milky."
Sam was fascinated. "What about the house? Was there anything there?"
"I didn't get much of a reading from her, but the EMF meter climbed into the red all over their house. It was strongest near the fireplace and her bedroom, so I salted both. She's not going to notice."
"Is it her dad's ghost then, not a succubus?"
"Incubus," Dean corrected.
Dad spoke over the top of them. "Both her parents were cremated."
"Wow." Dean grinned. "At least we won't have to find a backhoe just to do a salt-and-burn this time! The ground gets too damn hard up here."
"Language, Dean!"
The Winchesters hurried from the car into the small and half-empty diner, populated only by an elderly couple eating soup and a pair of sheriff's deputies getting coffee.
"Hey, you the EPA guy?" The older deputy, a black man about Dad's age, gave them a friendly wave. The younger deputy, a tall white guy, looked less willing to talk, and stayed at the counter while his partner came over to the table where the Winchesters were shedding their coats.
"Yeah, that's me. John Wells." The two men shook hands, and the deputy leaned on their table.
"Jason Wright. You think there's some kind of major problem here? Darrell Kovacs built our house, you see, and my son's about the same age as your younger boy, there."
"Seems to be limited to a few houses at the moment, but I'll give you a better answer as soon as I can. Have you seen anything unusual, Deputy? Normally healthy people getting sick, confused behavior, anything like that?"
The deputy took a sip of his coffee. "Like the Kovacs and the Nelsons, you mean, and Rick Walker? Nice folks, but after Darrell died, Maggie went downhill fast. I was surprised about Janet Nelson – she was Darrell's cousin, worked the real estate business for him. Her father was getting on, though, the dementia was getting worse. She looked after him pretty good, but without her, he didn't last long."
"Was he close to Darrell Kovacs too? Spent much time at their house?"
"I guess so. Old Jerry Nelson used to be a timber man, and he lent Darrell the money that got him started in real estate and construction. Darrell lived a charmed life, really, bought up a lot of the lakeside property just before the tourism boom started, then people paid him to build their houses on it! You think there's something in his house? He built a good third of the town – my house, the supermarket, even that motel you're staying at."
"If there's something in his house, I doubt it's anything to do with the construction, or it would be a widespread problem by now." Dad used his most placating voice to head off the chatty deputy creating an entire disaster scenario, but Dean and Sam stared, confused. Excess co-operation from law enforcement was not a problem they were accustomed to encountering. "Though, if I could look at some records, see which houses he built…"
"Head over to Oconto Falls for that – they've got everything in the county records there. It's all closed on weekends, though."
"Thanks for the tip. I'll head over on Monday, when the boys are in school."
The younger deputy had been talking on his radio. "Come on, Jason, let's get going."
Jason shook Dad's hand again. "Well, nice to meet you. I'll let you know if I hear anything."
"Of course, soon as I know more."
"Evening, boys." The deputy smiled at Sam and Dean, and followed his partner out the door.
"Cool, Dad! He was really nice! Do you think his son is in my class?"
"Could be, Sammy. You decided what you're ordering?"
Dean sighed. "You know he's gonna get grilled cheese and fries."
"Yeah, well, you're gonna get whatever's got bacon on it!"
"Quiet down, or no-one's gonna get anything at all. Sammy, you can have grilled cheese all you want, but you'll have some vegetables with it. Same for you, Dean."
Both boys grumbled but quickly settled down into an old argument about the merits of Coke versus Mountain Dew with one's meal, and Dad wrote in his journal, noting down every last detail of the day, as he always did. Their dinners arrived swiftly, and they all settled down to their meals.
"All right," Sam muttered through a mouthful of grilled cheese sandwich. "I'm gonna give Wisconsin points for this sandwich, if nothing else."
Dean punched him gently in the arm. "Told you it wasn't all bad. Now eat your carrots."