Episode Sixteen: Graven Images

By irismay42

Part Three

Dean almost pulled away from the invisible barrier at the sound of his own name.

“Sam?” he returned, the tingling in his fingers beginning to intensify until he had to will himself not to jerk his hand away, despite the sheer oddness of hearing his brother’s disembodied voice calling out to him.

“Dean? Dean, are you okay?”

Dean glanced about himself: at the empty highway; the tantalizingly distant horizon; the Pretend Impala, which seemed to have had its soul ripped right out through its headlights.

He was so far from “okay” he was in a different time zone.

But the desperation and concern in Sam’s voice was enough to cause the words, “I’m fine, Sam,” to issue automatically from his mouth, Protection Reflex kicking in as he sought to allay Sam’s fears. Protection Reflex satisfied, Defense Mode triggered Dean’s next question, “Where the hell are you? Did he get you too?”

Tingling fingers pressed against the cool plaster of Major Oak Mall’s outer wall, Sam eyed the dingy grey corridor warily. “I’m still at the mall,” he replied. “Near the CCTV Control Room. Where the hell are you? I’ve been looking everywhere! And – and did who get me?”

“Howie!” Dean replied urgently. “It was Howie Grumnik – the security camera dude!”

“Huh?” Sam sounded less than convinced. “That creepy hamster-looking guy?”

“Yeah, him,” Dean agreed. “I found this weird control room – like the one Kim showed us. Only – only different. Almost home-made, you know?”

“Like that lame EMF meter of yours?” Sam could almost hear Dean frowning.

“Dude, shut up for a second. I’m imparting knowledge here.”

“‘Imparting?’”

“You wanna know what’s going on or what?”

Sam sighed almost contentedly, continually amazed by the size of the hole Dean left in him when he wasn’t around. “Impart, O Great One.”

Dean ignored the jibe. “Dude,” he said instead. “You gotta get me outta here! This place is a waking freakin’ daytime TV nightmare!”

Sam frowned. “And ‘here’ would be…?”

Dean shook his head, even though he was pretty sure Sam couldn’t see him. “They call it Sherwood Falls,” he explained eventually.

“And ‘they’ are…?”

“What, am I speaking Swahili all of a sudden?” Dean burst out irritably. “The taken people!”

“They’re with you?” Sam ignored Dean’s snarkiness, figuring his brother probably had just cause.

“Yeah,” Dean confirmed. “All of them. In this – this weird-ass plastic daytime soap opera town where they’re all forced to play a role – like – like scripted reality TV taken to extremes, I guess. And there are these Deputies who wander around threatening them if they don’t stick to the ‘Script.’ And they all look like The Rock – I swear, The Rock, dude. And they all answer to this Sheriff guy who tells everybody what to do and watches them all the time on the security cameras, which are, like, everywhere, and – and – it’s Howie, Sam! It’s Howie and he knows us! He stuck me with this family – Lizzie Baker’s my stepmom here – and they told me my real ‘mom’ is in Lawrence. Freakin’ Lawrence, Sam! How did he know that? And – and he even went to the trouble of copying my car – I’ve got an Impala here, man! And…And…” Dean trailed off, suddenly realizing he’d not taken a breath in several seconds and was really starting to sound kinda crazy.

So much for allaying Sam’s fears.

There was a slight pause, before Sam finally returned, “You done?”

Dean took another breath. “Yeah, I’m good,” he replied, trying not to sound any more manic than he already did. “Sam. Where the hell am I?” When Sam didn’t reply, he continued, “Tell me you found my – my body, dude, ’cause you know, out of body experiences are so not cool when you don’t actually know where your body is. And that’s not something I wanna go misplacing, you know? Call me possessive, but I’m kinda attached to myself.”

Sam paused again, feeling the panic coming off his brother in waves. “I’ve not found you,” he finally admitted. “But you were down here when you were taken, right? I saw you on the security camera footage, despite Howie having tampered with the evidence…”

“He what?”

“Yeah. Messed with the tape. Made it look like you were leaving, then erased the footage from another camera altogether.”

“Son of a…”

“But you must still be down here. Howie’s gotta have you stashed somewhere.”

Dean shuddered. “Creepy-ass piece of – ”

“Dean that’s not helping.”

“I’m gonna kick his ass all the way to Krypton when I find him – ”

“That’s not even a real place.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t kick him there.”

“Dean.”

“Sam.”

Another pause, Sam leaning against the wall just as Dean leant against the barrier.

“Sammy?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you – you got any idea what happened to me? How to, you know, fix me?”

Sam felt the coolness of the wall against his aching forehead. “Not really,” he admitted. “Just… Well, just a – just an idea…”

“What kind of idea?”

Sam sighed. “You remember what Kim told us about that Amish belief that cameras can steal your soul…?”

“Howie stole my soul?” Dean burst out incredulously, leaning harder against the barrier, suddenly unsure whether his legs were up to the job of holding him upright any more.

“Maybe,” Sam mused.

Dean fought the urge to scream as loud as his lungs would let him. “What – what would make you think that?” he asked cautiously, his voice unnaturally calm.

“Well,” Sam replied, tried to sound equally as calm. “All of the victims were standing right in front of a security camera when they were taken, right? And there was the flash of light that we thought might be a camera flare? Not to mention the rainbows…”

“Yeah, definitely rainbows,” Dean agreed. “When Howie did – whatever he did to me,” he said, “I was poking around his freaky I Spy room, and when he came up behind me, I turned, and there was a camera pointed right at me and then there was a bright flash – and rainbows – and – and I was here.”

“It would explain why the victims are all still able to function the way they do,” Sam muttered, more to himself than to his brother, as if Dean’s apparent proximity had temporarily helped him forget that the older Winchester was himself one of those “victims.” “Still aware of their surroundings enough to survive physically, but not enough to be able to interact with the world around them. If the soul is essentially a person’s essence, then without it, you’ve just got a shell. Like a car without an engine.”

Dean shuddered again, trying not to think too hard on what Sam was theorizing. “Sam,” he asked carefully. “How does Howie know about us?”

Sam thought about that one. “He could have seen the Impala on the security cameras,” he reasoned. “Kansas plates. Maybe he did some digging.”

“I knew that guy was stalker serial killer material,” Dean muttered.

“Either that or he just thought you were so pretty you belonged on TV.”

Dean grunted. “Which brings us to the problem of getting me off of TV…”

“That could be – ” Sam searched for an adequate description, “ – tricky.”

“No kidding,” Dean agreed. “Seems the only guy to get out of here did it by jumping off a cliff.”

“Someone got out?” Sam seized on Dean’s words just as Dean had seized on Mindy’s.

“Yeah. Cop called James Gregory. I thought maybe he was related to Kim?”

“I’ll ask her,” Sam said. “If there’s a way out…” He broke off suddenly, a whirring sound behind him drawing his attention to Camera 142, which had just started to pan in his direction. “Uh, Dean,” he began slowly. “I think maybe I gotta go.”

“What?” Dean sounded panicked again. “Wait! I mean – how do we contact each other again? You think this is your psychic mojo doing its thing or what?”

“I don’t know,” Sam replied honestly, again eyeing the camera. “Maybe it’s just a fluke.”

“Or – or maybe it’s this place,” Dean mused suddenly. “Sam, I think I’m standing right on the edge of Howie’s little Stepford town – there’s this invisible fence thing across the highway. Maybe it’s because I’m here…?”

Sam nodded slowly, feeling the wall, cool and rough against his fingers. “Right now I’m standing at the edge of mall,” he agreed. “Maybe that’s how we’re connecting. Maybe – maybe we’re occupying the same space – somehow…” He trailed off, not entirely sure whether he was just trying to rationalize the irrational. “But I really think I have to go, or the question’s going to be pretty academic.”

“He’s trying to zap you?” Dean’s voice shifted from Panic Mode to full-on Protection Mode in the time it took to say “cheese.” “Sammy, go. Go now! No point us both being stuck here!”

Sam continued to eye the camera warily, the whirring altering in pitch as the lens began to zoom in on him. “Dean – ?”

“Ah crap – ”

“Dean?”

“I got company.”

“Dean!”

“Sammy get that big brain of yours thinking ’cause I think I might be in trouble here – ”

“What trouble? Dean? Dean!”

And just like that, the tingling in Sam’s fingers stopped abruptly.

And the younger Winchester bolted down the hall, just as a flash of light lit up the spot where he’d been standing.

***

“That was very naughty of you.”

The guy was big. Real big. Made Sammy look normal-sized. Didn’t look like the Deputies – taller, although as forbiddingly muscular, steel-grey hair cut short to his scalp and steel-grey eyes almost as cold as the sparsely-furnished room in which they stood.

Dean swallowed, game face on, trying not to think about the last time someone had towered over him like this, all menacing and in his space and yellow eyes and Dad’s face and…

No.

This guy was no Demon.

The Deputies on either side of him held him fast between them, fingers like metal vises around his upper arms, while the big guy got in his face, looking down at him as if he were merely a minor annoyance to be terrified into submission.

Dean didn’t terrify easily. And he didn’t submit easily either.

“You gonna make me go stand in the corner?” he asked, the innocent look on his face enough to make one tiny nerve in the corner of the big guy’s upper lip quiver slightly.

Dean half expected the guy to hit him, but managed not to flinch when a large hand merely grabbed his chin and held him fast.

“I think you may have set a new record, Mr. Hudson,” the big guy said, voice as cold as the icy eyes staring far too intently into Dean’s. “Most of our – uh – guests have been in Sherwood Falls at least a week before their introduction to the Sanatorium.” He lifted his wrist, melodramatically examining the silver Rolex glinting there. “But you?” he said, smiling mirthlessly. “Three hours. Like I said: a new record.”

“Always like to make a good first impression,” Dean returned, flashing that infuriating grin one more time.

“I’m sure,” the man agreed. “But then, that’s why the Sheriff wanted you here, I suppose. Thought you’d be – entertaining. A challenge.” He released his hold on Dean, turning slightly to eye the camera mounted in the corner of the whitewashed room before retreating behind a grandiose solid oak desk where he began to shuffle through a pile of orderly paperwork.

Dean’s eyes drifted to the brass nameplate neatly situated towards the front: Warden Benjamin T. Chappell.

The Warden, having apparently located what he was looking for, returned to his intimidating invasion of Dean’s personal space, looming over him as he cast an eye over the manila folder in his hand.

“Hmm,” he said distractedly, the folder opening enough for Dean to see a photograph of himself paperclipped to the inside cover. “I can see why the Sheriff brought you here. You’re not going to be easy to break are you?” When Dean made no response, the Warden’s cold gaze flitted back in his direction. “But make no mistake, it will happen. Sooner or later. Everyone breaks. You’ll come to accept your role, accept the Script. Sooner or later everyone bends to my – to the Sheriff’s will.”

Dean inclined his head slightly, returning the Warden’s gaze with a quizzical one of his own. “Your will?” he repeated the Warden’s Freudian slip, narrowing his eyes before squinting straight into those of the man opposite. “Howie?” he burst out. “That you in there?”

If Dean hadn’t been acutely aware that the Warden and his cronies were more than likely not exactly human, his pride in his hunter’s reflexes may have been hurt almost as much as his throat when the Warden suddenly snatched out a huge hand and yanked him right off his feet before he even had time to blink.

“Don’t call me that,” the Warden growled, voice low and threatening.

Gasping for oxygen as black spots started popping in front of his eyes, Dean managed to croak, “Dude, this whole choking thing? So not my kinda deal. You’re confusing me with my brother.”

If it were possible, the Warden’s eyes seemed to become even frostier. “Ah yes,” he said, tightening his grip around Dean’s throat. “Which brings me to the reason you’re here…”

“Howie!” Dean swore, not sure whether to aim his comments at the camera, through which he was convinced Grumnik would be watching, or at the Warden, who he was equally convinced had to be the little security guard’s alter ego in this freaky soap opera of his. “Howie, you so much as touch my brother and…”

“And you’ll what?” The Warden shook him like a rag doll, and suddenly his voice sounded to Dean as if it were echoing down a very long corridor. “You can’t do anything. You’re there. He’s here. With me. In the real world.”

“Damn it, I knew this freak of nature was your idea of wish fulfillment, Howie!”

“It’s Howard!” The Warden spat, finally releasing his hold on his captive, the manila folder scattering across the floor as Dean only avoided an up close and personal with the shiny black tiles thanks to the two gorillas still hanging on to his arms.

Blinking rapidly, Dean’s eyes managed to focus on the papers now littering the floor of the Warden’s tidy office, frowning as he realized that apart from the name Hudson: Dean typed neatly across the top of the first page, the rest of Dean’s “file” was comprised of blank sheets of paper.

He glanced up at the towering Warden, whose teeth were grinding audibly. “That’s it, isn’t it?” he said slowly. “There’s no Script, is there Howie? Just you and your damn fantasy wish fulfillment. You get off on torture, huh? Is that what this place is? Somewhere you can inflict pain and influence on people you don’t have any power over in the real world?” He stood straighter, looking right into the camera. “Well you can torture me all you like, you little pipsqueak. Like you said yourself – or you said through you mouthpiece here,” he indicated the Warden, “I don’t break easy. So take your best shot.”

The Warden’s head moved quickly, icy eyes suddenly inches from Dean’s. “Maybe not,” he said through gritted teeth. “But there’s something you need to remember: Don’t forget you still have a physical body. You’d be amazed how inventive I can be when motivated; the things I could do to what’s left of you in the real world…”

“Yeah, go ahead, Howie,” Dean spat defiantly, doing his best to disguise the unsettled tremor in his voice. “Pick on someone who can’t fight back. I guess that’s just your style, right?”

The Warden grunted. “You’ve been a bad boy, Mr. Hudson.” He emphasized the name sarcastically. “Trying to talk to that not-so-little brother of yours. Trying to communicate with the real world. Don’t you realize, Dean? For you there is no real world. This is it for you. This is your life now, this is your reality. The sooner you accept that, the better it’ll be for you – ”

“I’ll never – ”

“The better it’ll be for your brother.”

Dean froze.

“Because as much as the thought of hurting you appeals to me, the thought of hurting him to hurt you appeals even more. And I will hurt him, Dean. I swear. You try to talk to him again and I’ll send him to a place so far away from you you’ll wish I’d sent you both to Hell.”

There was a pause, when all Dean could focus on was the Warden’s eyes, and all he could hear was the zoom of the camera lens.

“You mean I’m not in Hell already?”

The Warden laughed at that, a hollow, pitiless sound. “It’s time you understood, boy,” he said quietly, face a mask of oh-so-superior condescension. “Round these parts, I’m God. By the time I’m finished with you, you’ll be begging to worship me. I’m your God now, boy. Your God. You understand that?”

Dean considered for a second, before flashing the Warden his sunniest grin. “Would this be a bad time to mention I’m an Atheist?”

***

“Sam!” Kim smiled awkwardly, tugging at her rumpled t-shirt and running a hand through her hair as she switched on the porch light. “What are you – ?”

Sam smiled just as awkwardly, bouncing nervously on the balls of his feet as he muttered apologetically, “I know. I’m like the proverbial bad penny, right?”

“That’s alright,” Kim assured him, concern in her dark eyes. “Did you – did you find Dean?”

Sam inclined his head. “Yes and no,” he replied enigmatically. “But I think I know who’s responsible.”

Kim raised an eyebrow. “You do?”

“It’s Howard,” Sam told her. “Howard Grumnik.”

“Howie?” Kim echoed incredulously. “Howie Grumnik an evil genius? Sam, are you sure? I just don’t see it…”

“Yeah,” Sam confirmed. “Pretty sure.”

“But how? What’s he doing?”

“Not sure yet,” Sam replied honestly. “But I think you might know someone who can help me with that.”

***

“Good choice of music,” Kim observed, Hendrix’s All Along the Watchtower thrumming from the Impala’s speakers as Sam gunned the engine.

The young man frowned ever-so-slightly, barely even remembering having turned on one of Dean’s CDs on the drive over from the mall.

Comfort blanket.

Being surrounded by the Impala obviously hadn’t been enough; Sam needed something else to simulate his big brother’s presence.

“Yeah,” he muttered finally. “Dean has the odd CD that doesn’t make me want to throw myself under a bus.”

Kim smiled slightly, her expression faltering as Sam pulled away from the curb. “James doesn’t make a whole lot of sense most of the time,” she said solemnly. “I don’t know how much help he’s going to be.”

Sam nodded sympathetically. “Why didn’t you tell us your husband had been taken?”

Kim shrugged. “My husband’s in a psychiatric hospital,” she said. “Not something I want to broadcast to just anybody.”

“And he just woke up? Just like that?”

“Three weeks after he was taken. He’s the only one who – the only one who’s come back.”

“But he was…?”

“Different.” The word sounded as if it had lodged in Kim’s throat. “The things he was saying – where he said he’d been – it just sounded crazy. Implausible. Impossible.”

“Where did he say he’d been?” Sam glanced sideways at her, mindful of Dean’s description of where he’d been taken.

Kim shrugged. “Kept talking about a – a Sheriff. And a Sanatorium where they – where they – ” She averted her eyes to study her fingernails a little too intently. “He said he’d been tortured in there.”

Sam swallowed hard. The last thing Dean had said was that people were coming for him… “You should have told us,” he said quietly, trying to ignore the sudden brittleness in his voice.

Kim nodded. “I thought it was irrelevant,” she said. “I thought James was just…” She trailed off, unable to complete the sentence.

Sam broke the uncomfortable silence first. “You think they’ll let us in to see him this late?”

“I’ll tell them it’s a family emergency,” Kim assured him. “Don’t worry. I’ll get us in.” She lapsed back into silence for a moment, concentrating on the steady movement of the windshield wipers and the low rumble of the music. Then, “You really think James can help you?”

Sam didn’t answer right away, slowly releasing a breath. “I hope so.”

Kim studied the young man’s face thoughtfully. “Can you help him?”

Sam glanced at her carefully as he turned into the hospital parking lot, smiling as reassuringly as he could, but unable to give her the answer she needed to hear.

***

So this wasn’t so bad, Dean told himself, assessing his surroundings with the practiced ease of someone regularly caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place.

“Rock” right now was being ably simulated by the two burly Deputies standing on either side of the white door opposite him, while “hard place” was undoubtedly the chair to which he found himself strapped, which uncomfortably reminded him of the electric variety.

He winced slightly as he tugged against the leather restraints biting into his wrists, fastening him to the chair arms just as similar straps secured his ankles to the contraption’s wooden legs. They’d forced him into a thin white t-shirt and pajama pants, which really offered little padding against the tight restraints, one of which was buckled a little too tightly around his midriff, while another encircled his neck, ensuring he couldn’t move his head too much without choking himself.

Okay, so maybe this was pretty bad, he decided, reassessing the situation as the door to the small white room opened to admit the hulking behemoth that was Warden Benjamin T. Chappell. Dean could swear the guy had grown a couple of inches taller since their last encounter. Maybe Howie figured he wasn’t intimidating enough already.

“Mr. Hudson,” the Warden bobbed his head curtly, closing the thick door quietly behind himself as he glanced at the camera in the corner of the room.

“It’s Winchester,” Dean spat through gritted teeth. “Howie.”

Temper flared on the Warden’s face. “Don’t call me that!” He raised a hand as if to smack Dean across the face, but caught himself just in time, forced calm flooding his features as his captive grinned up at him infuriatingly.

“Told ya so.”

Had Dean been able to move his head just then, he may have flinched as the Warden leaned his face down towards him, hands resting heavily on the arms of Dean’s chair.

“You need to learn to speak when spoken to,” Chappell breathed. “To be seen and not heard. Your mommy never taught you that?”

Dean’s jaw tensed, but he didn’t reply.

Chappell smirked. “Because she’s not really in Lawrence is she?”

Dean’s eyes flicked to the camera before locking back onto the Warden’s. “Sure she is,” he insisted. “My – uh – stepmom told me so.”

The Warden smiled lopsidedly, pulling away and straightening. “Not as dumb as you look, are you?”

“Not me,” Dean agreed. “How about you?”

The Warden didn’t rise to the bait. “I wish I could believe you,” he smiled disingenuously, “Mr. Hudson ,” he added, grin widening as the muscles continued to tighten along Dean’s jaw. “But until I’m sure you’re not going to go running off looking for ways to contact your little brother again – until I’m certain that you can be trusted as a valued member of this community – you’re going to be staying right here. In this room. In that chair.”

Dean gripped the chair arms unconsciously. “I’ve been in worse places.”

The Warden nodded, grin widening still further. “Oh, I seriously doubt that.”

He moved off to Dean’s right, to a bank of equipment that would have looked right at home on the bridge of the original Starship Enterprise: all color and no function.

If that control panel actually controlled anything, Dean would stand naked in the middle of Times Square singing show tunes. No way that thing controlled –

“Aagh!” Dean let out a surprised grunt, as Chappell spun a completely functionless-looking red dial, and his prisoner suddenly felt as if he’d been struck by lightning.

It was difficult to describe the sensation. Like wrestling a hundred electric eels in a vat of boiling water just as someone tossed in a radio still connected to the mains.

Dean jerked – once, twice, three times – body stiffening as the pain crackled from his head down to his toes and back up again, eyes swimming out of focus as they were suddenly blinded by flashes of the brightest light he’d ever seen in his life.

When the pain stopped, all he could see were rainbows.

“Did that hurt?”

Dean could hear the voice, but the words sounded odd – indistinct and unintelligible, as if someone were speaking to him in a completely alien language.

Taking a deep breath, he was suddenly aware of the heaviness of his own body, head drooping against the restraint around his neck as his fingernails dug into the hard wooden arms of the chair.

“What’s your name, boy?”

Suddenly the words started to make sense again, and for the first time in several seconds, Dean actually knew the answer to that question.

“Dean,” he said, teeth chattering as he spoke.

“Dean what?”

“W – Winchester – ”

The next spike of pain tore through his skull as if it was ripping out chunks of his brain, a strange noise suddenly assaulting his ears as he felt as if he were drifting above himself, looking down at the young man twitching and jerking against his restraints.

It was only when the pain stopped that Dean managed to identify that awful noise.

It had been the sound of himself screaming.

“Let’s try that again, son,” the Warden insisted, fingers toying with the red dial in front of him. “I didn’t quite catch your last name…?”

“Howie, I swear you do that again and – ” Dean never got to finish the threat; an agonized scream ripped from his throat before he’d even had time to recover from the last one.

“What’s your name?”

Dean had the distinct impression of floating this time, hovering up towards the ceiling, looking down at a figure he didn’t recognize strapped to a big wooden chair beneath him.

“Name.”

“Winchester.”

“Name?”

“I don’t – ”

“Accept the role, boy. Just accept it. I’ll make the pain stop, I swear. I’ll make it all better. Just tell me your name.”

“Winchester!” Dean fairly hurled the three syllables across the room at his tormentor, the next wave of agony causing him to lose all sense of up and down, all sense of time and space. All sense of self.

“Just tell me what I want to hear, son. Just give in to it. Just let go. Tell me your name and this can all be over – ”

“Win – ”

“I can make it stop – ”

“ – chest – ”

“And I won’t even have to lay a hand on your brother – ”

Dean opened his eyes wide before squeezing them shut again, breathing hard and swallowing bile.

“Hudson,” he said quietly, hanging his head. “Dean Hudson.”

***

Sam fiddled unconsciously with the leather bracelet around his wrist, hands resting lightly on the metal table in front of him, that weird tingling in his fingers having somehow made it to the back of his eyes.

Dean was in trouble. Something was hurting him. He just knew it.

Kim fidgeted nervously at his side, long fingers drumming against the tabletop, eyes darting to the door at the slightest sound.

Finally, it opened, and a tall African American man whose shoulders looked impossibly broad in his hospital-issue white pajamas entered the room, closely followed by an orderly of almost the same size.

A brief smile flickered across his handsome face as he registered Kim’s presence, but quickly turned to an almost hostile frown when Sam stood and held out a hand towards him.

Tall kid. Too tall.

When James Gregory didn’t take his outstretched hand, Sam sat abruptly, suddenly remembering that his height could sometimes be intimidating, even though he estimated that the former cop was only a couple of inches shorter than he was at best.

James sat too, following Sam’s lead, but still wary of him, eyes warming as they returned to Kim. “Hey baby.”

Kim smiled then, shoulders relaxing. “Hey yourself.” She ran a finger along the back of his hand, temporarily lost somewhere a long way away from the dingy green visitors’ room. Coming back to herself abruptly, she nodded briefly in Sam’s direction. “This is Sam,” she said. “He has a problem he thinks you may be able to help him with.”

“I don’t help folks no more,” James said shortly, liquid brown eyes shifting languidly to Sam, obviously dulled by the drugs floating around in his system.

When James said nothing further, Sam cleared his throat, figuring the direct approach was probably the way to go. “My brother’s been taken,” he said flatly. “By the same thing that took you.”

James showed no obvious emotion apart from an almost imperceptible flaring of his nostrils.

“I think he’s where you were,” Sam plowed on. “And I need to get him back. I need to get them all back.”

James shifted in his seat, eyes suddenly sharper. “What makes you think I can help you? No one believes me.” He looked pointedly at Kim, who averted her gaze, before sighing deeply. “Hell, sometimes I don’t even believe me.”

“I believe you,” Sam insisted, looking the cop right in the eye. “I know you’re the only one who got out. I know you threw yourself off a cliff to do it.”

If James was surprised he didn’t show it. “Desperate,” he said shortly. “Only way I could think of.”

Sam nodded his understanding. “I know,” he said, voice soothing and low. “But I’m not sure telling a whole town full of people to jump off a cliff would be such a great idea.”

James’ eyes widened in horror, big hand snatching out and encircling Sam’s wrist. “No!” he burst out, squeezing so hard Sam barely managed to stifle a yelp. “No!”

“Honey – ” Kim reached out to her husband, one eye on the orderly who had taken a wary step in James’ direction.

“They mustn’t do that!” James seemed oblivious to the movement behind him. “I shouldn’t have. Came back – wrong. Different.” He abruptly released Sam’s wrist, resting his elbows on the table and his head in his hands. “Pieces missing. Pieces they took.”

Sam glanced sideways at Kim, whose eyes were brimming with tears.

“This is how he’s been,” she mumbled. “Since he came back.”

Sam took a breath, thinking. “James,” he said slowly. “Who took pieces from you?”

“Not ‘from,’” James said, not looking up. “Of.”

“‘Of?’”

James finally met Sam’s quizzical gaze. “Pieces of me. Just floated away.”

Kim shook her head, wiping away an errant tear.

“How did they take pieces of you?” Sam nudged gently.

James eyed him thoughtfully. “You spoke to someone? Someone there?” he asked, not answering Sam’s question.

Sam nodded. “My brother.”

“How?”

“Good question,” Sam sighed. “I’m not really sure. He said he’d reached a barrier around the town – ”

“No way out that way,” James grunted.

“ – And I was at the edge of the mall,” Sam continued. “I think – I think somehow we touched.”

To Sam’s surprise, James didn’t laugh. “You were lucky. Won’t happen again.” His tone was so authoritative, so final, Sam instinctively believed him. “They watch. He watches. Your brother…” He shook his head sadly.

Sam bit his lip. “He said people were coming for him.”

“Yes. The Sheriff will have seen. Will punish.”

“Punish Dean?”

James nodded. “For not accepting his role. Like me. Said no. No, this isn’t me. I won’t live your life, I won’t.” He was shaking his fist at something in the corner of the room, and Sam turned, startled by the unobtrusive grey security camera hidden in the shadows there. Then James calmed, looking into Sam’s eyes again. “Always punish.”

“How?” Sam’s voice sounded hollow, broken.

James’ huge shoulders shuddered. “Sanatorium,” he said simply. “Warden. Took pieces.”

“He tortured you?” Sam sounded aghast, and Kim reached across to hold her husband’s hand. “This Warden tortured you?”

James met Sam’s gaze levelly. “Wouldn’t follow the Script,” he said. “Wouldn’t do as I was told.” He let go of Kim’s hand and caught Sam’s wrist again, but didn’t squeeze so hard this time. “Couldn’t break me. You understand?”

Sam nodded. “So you ran off and jumped off a cliff?”

“Thought the pieces would come back with me.”

“And they didn’t? You came back wrong?”

James nodded. “Pieces missing.”

“Pieces of what, James?”

The cop stared at him. “Will your brother break easy?”

Sam frowned, chewing on his lip before shaking his head wordlessly.

James nodded sadly. “Then they’ll take pieces of him too. And even if he comes back, he’ll come back wrong like me.”

Sam fought the urge to jump up from the table, run for the car and drive back to the mall as fast as the Impala’s V8 could get him there. “Why do you think you’re ‘wrong?’” he asked instead.

James seemed to consider that for a long moment. “Things don’t work. Scattered. Short circuit. Pieces don’t fit together right anymore. Holes. Pieces missing.”

Sam took a long breath, exhaled slowly before repeating his earlier question. “Pieces of what, James?”

James gazed at him long and hard, before moving his head towards him slightly, hand still gripping his wrist, eyes boring into the younger man’s. Voice lowered, he whispered, “My soul. They took pieces of my soul.”

***

It was so quiet up here. Quiet and high.

He didn’t like heights much. But this was okay. Not like flying. Like floating. No dizziness. Just… Here.

Floating.

Rainbows in his eyes.

So quiet.

Until that awful noise shattered the silence once more.

Terrible, terrible noise.

And he was falling.

Plummeting towards the noise. Towards the boy in the chair who was making it.

***

Dean screamed. Screamed until his throat was raw. Screamed until he thought his head would explode with the noise.

There’d been a brief sensation of floating, light all around him, no pain, just peace and quiet.

And then the pain had come rushing back at him and it was all he could do just to hang on.

Because something was trying to rip him away. Tear him from his body. His body that wasn’t even really his.

He tried to breathe as the pain abruptly abated, blinking back tears as he tried to remember his name.

Dean. Dean – something.

“You’re doing very well, son,” the low voice next to him said. “I almost believe you. Almost. But not quite. Now tell me your name again.”

“Don’t – don’t remember – ”

“Give it time. There are bound to be pieces missing.”

“Sammy,” Dean said suddenly, only one name managing to make it through the haze fogging his senses. “Need to – where’s Sammy? Dad’ll be mad at me – ”

“You remember his name then? Alright. Tell me your brother’s name.”

“I just did.”

“Tell me.”

“Sammy. Sam.”

“Your brother’s name, Dean.”

“Sam.”

“Matthew, Dean. Your brother’s name’s Matthew.”

“No, it’s Sam.”

“That’s the wrong answer.”

“Sam – ”

And then the screaming started again.

***

His soul. They took pieces of James’ soul. And he’d come back without them.

His freakin’ soul.

Sam couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe he’d been right.

So that’s what this was? Howie Grumnik was a soul stealer?

It made so much ridiculous sense, Sam couldn’t believe he’d even doubted himself when he’d laid his theory out for Dean. Howie was using the mall’s security cameras to somehow steal people’s souls. Transport them to his little fantasy town. Intimidate them into fulfilling the roles he’d cast them in, and torture them if they didn’t comply.

Howard Grumnik was playing God.

Christ. This made killer bugs seem almost plausible…

Sam made short work of the lock on the door beneath Camera 142. Spared barely a second glance at the thick chain barring entrance as it clattered to the dusty floor, bolt cutters abandoned along with it. Strode along the gloomily-lit corridor like he owned the place. Easily identified the route Dean had taken from the marks in the dirt on the floor. Shouldered the door. Burst into the room, handgun drawn –

And almost dropped it the second he crossed the threshold.

It wasn’t so much what Sam saw that shocked him – the huge bank of TV monitors like electronic crazy paving splattered across one entire wall. No. What shocked him was the sound.

The sound of his brother screaming out his name.

“Sammy!”

Sam had heard Dean cry out for him plenty of times over the last twenty-three years. Sometimes in anger. Sometimes in fear. Often in pain.

But never like this.

Never in absolute agony.

“That’s not you brother’s name, boy,” a cold voice, barely audible above Dean’s screams, seemed to fill the room around him, and it was only then that Sam realized where the voices were coming from.

Speakers.

Goddamn it.

Sam was listening to Dean being tortured in full-on 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround Sound.

And that was when he finally took a proper look at the image displayed on almost every screen on the wall in front of him.

“Dean?”

He covered the distance between himself and the jury-rigged control panel in three long strides, shoving aside the empty chair before resting his hands on the desk before him.

Dean was there, repeated over and over, strapped to a wooden chair in a stark white room, a tall man standing over him, fiddling with a crazy-looking machine beside him.

“What’s your brother’s name, son?” the tall man repeated during a brief cessation of Dean’s agonized cries.

“S – S – ”

“Matthew. Come on, Dean. I know you want to give in to it. Let me help you. Let me stop the pain – ”

Dean grit his teeth. “Sammy – ” he managed, before another scream was torn from him.

Along with something else.

Sam blinked at the screen, knuckles white as he gripped the edge of the desk harder with each cry emanating from his brother’s mouth. He squinted. Tried not to see the agony on Dean’s face.

Rainbows.

Flashes of color rising from Dean’s tortured eyes, wide open and staring up at the ceiling.

Windows on the soul.

Sam remembered the old proverb and shook his head, desperately scanning the control panel in front of him for something – anything – that he could use to help Dean.

“If you keep saying that name, boy,” the steely-eyed guy on the screen was saying, “I might have to find a way to take Sammy right out of the picture.” Sam’s eyes snapped to the nearest monitor. “If that’s the only way to break you. If that’s the only way to make you accept your role…”

“Don’t – ” Dean managed weakly. “Please.”

Sam fought down the lump in his throat, eyes drawn to a flat screen monitor slightly larger than the others, just as Dean began to scream his name anew.

Wishing he could just shut off his ears, Sam squinted at the image on the larger monitor, the word “Control” stenciled lopsidedly on the bottom of the surround around the screen.

The screen showed an image of what looked like some kind of town square, a large, brightly colored mural covering a wall the entire length of one side. It reminded Sam a little of the Korean War Memorial in Washington, D.C. Dad had taken them there once when they were kids and he’d been on a hunt for a particularly sadistic warlock who had a thing for torturing politicians.

He remembered seeing his reflection in the smooth black granite wall, creating the illusion that he was standing with the soldiers depicted there.

The mural on the monitor had a similar three-dimensional look to it, and it was only on closer inspection of the figures ranged along the wall that Sam realized what he was looking at.

The people who had been taken.

All of them.

Images of them in full color from one side of the wall to the other.

Lizzie Baker. The two Tyler kids.

Dean.

As his brother let out another anguished cry, Sam’s eyes snapped briefly to one of the other monitors, where a swirl of rainbow-colored light was dancing above Dean’s head.

Looking back at the mural, Sam realized with a shock that the color was draining right out of the picture of Dean depicted on the wall, the image guttering and shuddering with each new scream that escaped his brother’s lips.

Pieces of his soul.

Photographs can steal your soul.

“I don’t want to hurt you any more, Dean,” the grey-haired torturer on the monitors was saying. “And I don’t want to hurt your brother.”

Sam started as he suddenly realized he’d heard that last sentence in more than just surround sound. There was another voice behind him, echoing the words being spoken by the man up on the screens.

Sam spun towards the voice, eyes widening as he found himself staring down the barrel of a Taser.

“I don’t want to hurt your brother,” Howard Grumnik spoke into his headset, grinning evilly as his words issued from Warden Benjamin T. Chappell’s mouth. A self-satisfied smile twitched at his lips as he pondered the image on the PDA in his hand, the same image of Dean being tortured that was splayed across the bank of TV screens in front of him. “But I will if I have to.”

He smirked at Sam as he pulled back on the trigger.

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