Chapter Text
'Ever heard of a place called [REDACTED], [REDACTED]?' says Bobby. 'Small town, sweet as pie, people seem to pass through just fine, anyone who tries to stick around vanishes, you know the type, and frankly, boys, if you ain't out of this house within the hour I'm going to be so damned sick of you that you might just be feelin' the butt-end of my shotgun.'
Dean turns on the charm for the waitress.
'And extra syrup with that. Ma'am, anyone ever tell you that your smile's brighter'n the sun?'
'Well, ain't that nice,' she says, and twinkles at him. She's young, curly-haired, glittery blue fingernails on a pen. 'So what're you folks doin' here?'
'Oh, just passin' through, you know,' says Dean. He's all spread back in the booth, arms hooked over the back like he thinks he's the fucking king, head tilted. 'Though now we're thinkin' about staying a while. I'm just on a road-trip, see, me and my dumbass kid brother over there. Yeah, that one with the hair. He's lookin' like a thunderstorm right now 'cause he's pissed, but he can be real sweet if you braid his hair nice.'
'Shut up, Dean.'
'It speaks!'
The waitress giggles. She bites the end of her pen. Strawberry-glossed mouth. 'Y'know, my gramma always used to tell me, before she passed and all, that I should always be nice to my sister, 'cause when we were old and the rest of the family were gone, she might be the only one I had.'
'See? Now that is some real fine advice,' says Dean. 'Yeah, see, our great-aunt always used to tell us the same thing. Didn't she, Sam? She was a saint, that woman. Oh, yeah. I'm sittin' here right now, I can smell the bread she used to make every Sunday mornin'. Raised me and Sam single-handed, just about, didn't she, Sam? Wonderful lady.'
The waitress gives him one of those smiles, like she isn't buying his bullshit but she thinks it's cute anyway, and goes over to the counter. Sam leans forward across the table.
'Dean.'
'Mm?'
'Please,' he says, 'please, will you stop staring at that poor girl for the five seconds it'll take you to read this?'
'Sure.' He doesn't stop staring.
Sam sighs- it's a long, heavy, put-upon sigh and he hopes it irritates Dean to hell- and reads. 'Have you seen my sister Arlene, brown hair, blue eyes- et cetera et cetera- last seen six months ago, went missing on her way to Arizona- and there's a route- the last time anyone saw her was in a town thirty miles down the highway- Dean, she would have passed through here. She's not the only one, either- there's other similar cases- stretching back fifty years or so. Bobby's had this file gathering dust for ages. You aren't listening to a word I'm saying, are you?'
'It's a nice town, Sam, okay, I can enjoy it and do my job. Maybe you should try and remember how to do that too, huh?'
Sam clenches his jaw, real hard.
The waitress comes over with Dean's pancakes and calls him sugar.
'Shit, look at this place,' Dean says. 'Sun's shinin'- decent food- friendly locals-'
'What if one of them turns out to be hiding dessicated corpses in his basement?'
Dean takes no notice. There's a garage on the other side of the street; Dean veers towards it and Sam is forced to catch up.
Dean's right; it's a nice town. It's very still and quiet and sunshiny. Rows of painted houses, all their windows dim, it's eight in the morning. They and a mechanic, working out front of the garage, are the only people on the street. The diner had been empty, too. Sam isn't sure why he doesn't like it. According to the sign outside the main road, the population was [REDACTED]. Perhaps that's what's unnerving him. There's always something weird about small towns where people go missing; he can't help but wonder where there is to go.
Dean is deepy engaged in conversation with the mechanic.
'Yeah, see, me and my buddy here- what?- oh, no, no blood relation, frat brothers, y'know- we like this place so much, we're thinkin' about renting. So, uh, have you lived here long yourself?'
'Moved here in '93,' says the mechanic, and gives Dean a dirt-creased, crinkled-up grin. 'Best decision I ever made. Ain't no unfriendly folk round here- it's a great community.'
'Now that's exactly what a man wants to hear about the place he's thinkin' of spending his golden years in.'
The mechanic doesn't recognise Arlene Jacobs from the photograph Dean shows him. They leave, Dean waving cheerily, shouting promises to go for a drink with the guy sometime.
Dean gives a happy sigh as they walk.
'Is this seriously the sort of place you'd want to live?' says Sam. 'You know. If you ever retired?'
A confused look. 'I guess? I never really thought about it. That's a pretty dim hypothetical.'
'I don't like it,' says Sam.
'Yeah, what a shock.'
'No- I mean- it feels- strange.'
It's inadequate. He realises only as he says it that it's true. A lace curtain billows out of a window as they pass. There's something phantasmical to it. He can feel the sun on the back of his neck like a hand, or the imprint of a hand.
'Strange how?'
'I don't- know,' he says. 'Just strange.'
Dean rolls his eyes.
They get chatting, or Dean gets chatting, to a local man. Sam takes a risk and shows him all the photos, one for each possible victim. The man leaves through them with a big furrow in the middle of his forehead and makes humming noises and says 'Well, now' too much. Then he asks them if they want to come inside for a coffee.
'But weren't you just going somewhere?' says Sam. The man was leaving his house when they started talking to him.
'Well, now, it isn't every day that we get newcomers, is it? Come in, come in, come on in, you can see the old place, I absolutely insist.'
'Well-' says Dean. He glances uncertainly at Sam. Before he'd looked all for accepting, but he's taken Sam's reluctance on board. Sam feels a little better at that, a little more certain.
But the guy's already ushering them in, backing them up the steps, flapping his arms like an old chicken. Once inside, he closes the door behind them; leads them down the hallway to his sitting-room.
They sit down at the table. Sam feels Dean beside him, coiled, steady.
'So, uh,' says Dean. He slides one of the photos across. 'You said you might have seen this woman. Can you clarify what you meant by that?'
As Dean talks to the guy, Sam takes in the room. There's too much furniture in here; overstuffed sofas and armchairs and a clutter of little tables. Everything's an oddly sumptuous shade of blue. It doesn't look like a colour that someone who's dressed like this guy- harmless beige, orthopaedic shoes- would go for. Perhaps his wife picked the furniture.
There is something missing from this room. It's too- depthless. The ceiling's closed over them like a bell-tower. Or perhaps it's just too warm. All these things. He can't breathe properly.
'Well, I think that'll be all, Mr Shriver,' Dean says, and gets up. 'Sam?'
'Yeah.' He follows Dean out.
On the street, Dean frowns to himself. 'That was kinda weird, wasn't it,' he says.
'A bit,' says Sam.
'Hm,' says Dean.
Their motel's only a few blocks down, so they walk the distance. By the time they get there- it's one of those cinderblock things off the side of the road- Dean's regained all his original enthusiasm in re: the town. Sam mostly ignores him and tries to think. He's picturing Shriver's house to himself.
'And those tacos they sold,' Dean's saying as he unlocks the door- number one, it seems no-one else is staying in the motel- 'man, I haven't had a taco that good since high school.'
The room's pretty nasty; stained ceiling and cigarette burns on the sheets.They'd dumped their stuff here earlier, shotguns spilling out over the beds, knives unreal in the cheap light.
'There's something wrong with this whole place, Dean,' Sam says. He sits on the edge of the bed; curls his hand around the stock of a shotgun.
Dean, at the other bed, is moving all his stuff onto the floor. 'Well, maybe. But is that any reason why a man can't enjoy the food?'
'Not maybe. There is.'
'You see darkness everywhere, Sam.'
'Darkness is everywhere.'
'Yeah, but you can't go round thinkin' like that all the time. It ain't good for you.' Dean says it in the offhand way that he says pretty much anything important to him. He's cleaning out a gun, raising it to squint into the chamber.
Sam wants to make him stop. He wants to make him put down the shotgun and look at him. He wants to make him say something so that it looks like it hurts. To drag the words out of Dean's chest like vital things.
Takes a breath. 'Dad wouldn't say that. He'd say- darkness is in all of us, and it's our duty to be aware of it. You know he would.'
'We're not talkin' about Dad, Sam.' Still looking that gun over.
'We can't just go forever without mentioning it.'
'Hm,' Dean says, pressing a cartridge in. 'And here's me thinkin' we could.'
He gets up. 'Dean,' he says.
Their eyes meet. The shotgun loose in Dean's hands.
'Sam,' says Dean, 'c'mon,' but the memory stands up between them, pulled to its feet like a puppet and Dean, he'd said, Dad told you to do it you have to, grabbing his face, too close and too hot and too much, all that breath, You don't lay that kind of crap on your kids, hugging the pillow. They stare at each other and Dean, Dean looks stricken. It's unbearable. Neither of them can say a word. The silence lasts for far too long to be something they can pretend never happened. These moments are breaking them, one by one.
A flicker. They both look up at the light. A moth? But it's just the bulb. Something scratches at Sam's memory. He gazes at the bulb.
'Sam,' says Dean, voice too low. He clears his throat. 'You know that ain't good for your eyes, right?'
'Yeah,' says Sam, and then, 'If this place is so innocent, then where are the insects?'
Dean looks completely blank. 'What?'
Sam goes to the window. He can't look at Dean any longer. They hadn't drawn the curtains; outside is the darkening car park, rooftops visible over the trees. 'The insects,' he says. 'This whole time. No spiders- no wasps- hell, no cats or dogs. It's the middle of July, Dean, and we haven't even seen any flies.'
For a moment Dean's face doesn't change and Sam thinks he's going to scoff at everything Sam's saying. Then, 'Listen,' Dean says. 'No birds.'
A coldness slides into Sam's stomach and sits there.
They go outside, leaving the door open behind them. Stand in the car park, deserted but for the Impala. Night still pale in the sky. A faint breath of stars. They listen, Sam can feel Dean listening. There's nothing. No hum of bluebottles or crickets, no distant rustlings in the trees beyond the car park, no barkings or howlings, no birdsong. This town is almost entirely voiceless.
The evening shines in the whites of Dean's eyes.
'What the fuck,' he says. He looks scared.
'I don't know. Dean.'
'Look. It could be nothing.'
'It is nothing.' Sam knows he sounds bitchy; he can't help it. 'That's kinda my point.'
'Jesus, Sam, you know what I mean. Listen- let's go back inside. Shit.'
Back in the room, Sam sits at the table. Dean goes into the bathroom, from which clunking noises emnate for the next half-hour or so. God knows what he's doing in there. Sam tries to do some research, but he just ends up going back to the same sites, the same articles, and he can't seem to co-ordinate his hands properly.
When Dean comes out of the bathroom he seems to be on a God-given mission to pretend that everything is fine. He looks at Sam.
'What's wrong? Wallpaper not pretty enough for you or somethin'?'
'Don't.'
Holding up his hands. But he doesn't push it. He sits back down on his bed; takes to cleaning his guns again.