Episode Sixteen: Graven Images

By irismay42

Part Four

Wow, that hurt.

Sam put a hand to his forehead, blinking hard and sitting up in a blind panic when he suddenly realized he couldn’t see anything.

That’s because it’s dark, Sam, he chastised himself, slowing his breathing in a valiant attempt to quiet his hammering heart. He tilted his head slightly, squinting at a shaft of yellow light spearing through the darkness above him before gradually standing on wobbly legs, trying to remember what the hell had happened to him as he stumbled toward the distant rectangle of illumination.

Howie. Taser.

Oh yeah.

He massaged his chest uncomfortably where the Taser’s electrodes had struck him, grimacing as he bumped into a very solid wooden door, before pressing his face against the small window and blinking some more against the harsh light.

He found himself looking out onto Howie’s freaky control room, the small security guard hunkered down in his huge control chair, his back to Sam as his fingers danced across his control board. Sam’s gun and cell phone were clearly visible on the desk next to him, and Sam grit his teeth in annoyed frustration that he’d let a squirt of Howie’s stature overpower him and take his stuff so easily.

When Dean found out, he’d never hear the end of it.

Howie’s attention had drifted to the bank of TV monitors in front of him, and Sam followed his gaze nervously, clenching his jaw tightly when he saw Dean’s image still displayed across almost all of the screens, eyes open wide as he endured whatever agony Grumnik was currently inflicting upon him.

Even through the locked door, Sam could hear the sound of his brother screaming out his name.

He beat his fist angrily and uselessly against the glass panel, his own voice almost a scream itself. “Howie, goddamn it, leave him alone!”

Grumnik half-turned, a smirk creeping across his self-satisfied features as he twisted a dial on the control board in front of him. Up on the screen, the big Warden seemed to repeat the procedure, Dean’s screams intensifying just as Sam’s attention was drawn to something pulsing on the control board next to Howie’s right hand.

It was a crystal of some kind, set into the panel below the monitor displaying the town mural, a tangle of dangerous-looking wires twisting around it, snaking off into the recesses of the computer equipment ranged behind the screens.

The more Howie twisted the dial, the brighter the crystal had begun to blaze, and it was only when the security guard seemed to relent, reversing the direction of the control beneath his fingers, that the crystal ceased its pulsing, going almost dark as Dean’s screams finally abated, his body still jerking against his restraints as the light show above his head seemed to settle around him like some unearthly aura.

Huh.

Sam filed that little observation – albeit useless for the moment – away for possible future use, breath fogging the window as he leaned his forehead against the glass.

It was only because Dean had stopped screaming that Sam felt he was able to breathe at all.

His attention was drawn back to the TV monitors then, movement near his brother’s image making his stomach clench. The Warden was circling him, gazing down at him thoughtfully as the maelstrom of color slowly descended back towards Dean’s unnaturally staring eyes.

“Dean,” the Warden said quietly, voice so low Sam could barely hear him, almost drowned out by the same words issuing from Howie’s mouth a microsecond earlier. “All you have to do is say the word – the right word – and all of this can be over.”

Dean’s eyes were drifting in and out of focus, his face a mask of agony and – something else.

Anger.

“Screw you, Howie,” he managed weakly, his voice hoarse and broken.

“Now, now,” Sam heard Howie’s words echoing from the Warden’s mouth. “We don’t talk to each other like that in Sherwood Falls. You know that. Honestly. What were you, raised in a brothel?”

Dean jerked against his restraints, clearly wanting nothing more than to tear the guy’s face off.

The Warden chuckled, his laugh much colder and more menacing that Howie’s high-pitched snort.

“Mom’s in Kansas, remember Dean? Brought you up right, didn’t she? Even without your dad there…”

Dean gripped the chair arms tighter.

“Poor Stephen Hudson. Never even knew you existed –”

“He’s not my dad –”

“Never got to see you grow up –”

“He’s not my –”

“Never got to teach you what he knew.”

The Warden stopped, enjoying the look of anger frozen on Dean’s face as he suddenly realized his captor wasn’t really talking about the Hudsons any more.

“Oh, but wait,” Chappell continued, grinning slyly. “Wasn’t that your mom? I’m confusing things. Your mom never got to see you grow up, did she? Never got to teach you what she knew…”

“You sonofa –”

“Now you see, don’t you, Dean?” The Warden lowered his face so that it was inches from his prisoner’s. “You see how much better this is for you? How much better this is than the real world? Here, mom’s back in Lawrence, alive and well, and you get to spend some quality time with your dad. That’s better, right? All you’ve ever wanted?”

“You don’t know anything about me.” Dean’s voice was low and subdued, and Sam didn’t ever remember hearing him sound so uncertain of himself.

“I know you don’t do as you’re told, Mr. Hudson. Not very obedient, are we? Can’t seem to follow orders.”

Sam would have given anything for Dean to turn up that grin and spit some venomously inappropriate one-liner the Warden’s way.

But he didn’t. He didn’t even attempt a response. Just closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the chair.

“Or maybe that’s just me. Maybe you just won’t do what I tell you to do. Maybe you only follow orders when it suits you, when there’s something more important than your life at stake. Maybe it’s going to take a different kind of persuasion to make you obey me.” The Warden resumed his circling, shoes clicking rhythmically on the tile floor. He came to a stop behind the chair, leaning down before whispering in Dean’s ear, “You see, I’ve got something more important to you than your own life now, Dean. I’ve got your brother. Sammy? The one you’ve been screaming for…”

Sam’s fingers balled into fists against the glass as Howie leaned forward in his chair.

“I don’t think I’ll kill him. Not yet. And I’m certainly not sending him in there to play with you. Might keep him for a while. Insurance. There are pieces I could take from him. Won’t damage him too much. People can lead productive lives with pieces missing… Pieces they don’t really need…”

They took pieces of my soul…

Sam swallowed hard, and on the monitors, Dean did the same.

“…Pieces I could send anywhere I want to. I’m God, remember? I could send him all the way to – to Krypton. If it existed.”

Goddamnit! He’d been watching them the whole time.

Howie’s attention suddenly seemed to shift to one of the other screens, where Sam could see Kim entering the building on her way in to work.

While the fact that Howie was watching Kim was disturbing enough, the fact that this meant it must be morning already was worse. Much worse. Sam must have been unconscious for hours. Hours Dean had spent strapped to a chair having God-only-knew-what done to him.

Howie watched Kim enter the building, following her progress from camera to camera, and somewhere in the back of his head, Sam realized Howie must be hooked into the entire mall security camera system. So that was how he had doctored the footage of Dean. That was how he was taking people.

No wonder he never went home.

Howie glanced at his watch, his words falling from the Warden’s mouth distractedly. “Well, Mr. Hudson, I’d love to stay and finish our little chat, but as you can see –” he waved a hand towards the barred window opposite Dean’s position where sunlight was streaming through, creating criss-cross patterns on the tile floor, “– it’s getting late.”

Dean frowned up at him, opened his mouth as if to make some wise-ass retort about its being broad daylight outside, but quickly closed it again as Howie jabbed at a button on his control panel and the blue sky beyond the window abruptly transformed into velvety black night, complete with stars twinkling and a full moon.

Dean blinked. “Gives a whole new meaning to ‘Lights Out,’” he muttered, suddenly remembering Mindy’s words from earlier: We don’t always get night time.

Jeez, this guy could control day and night too?

The Warden leaned down again abruptly, hands once more braced against the arms of Dean’s chair. “I’m God, remember?”

Sam almost laughed out loud at that sentence issuing from Howie’s lips, but Dean flinched, the same words sounding a hell of a lot more sinister coming from the Warden.

Which, of course, was the point.

Howie’s cell phone chose that moment to chirrup, and the security guard frowned at the caller I.D., deftly bringing up what Sam quickly recognized as the other CCTV control room on one of his screens.

Lozano was visible in one of the chairs, cell phone pressed to his ear and an irritated expression on his face. “Howie, where the hell are you? You’re late, and Ms. Gregory’s already asking after you!”

“I’m on my way down now,” Howie replied into his cell with an audible sigh, real life an irritating intrusion into his fantasy world. “Two minutes.”

“Alright, Howie,” Lozano looked relieved. “But this isn’t like you. Is everything –?”

“I’ve been busy,” Howie cut him off, scanning the feed displaying Dean, who was being manhandled out of the torture chair by the two Deputies. He hit a button on the panel in front of him, and the legend “Autorun” appeared on the big control screen displaying the mural, Warden Chappell beginning to speak without Grumnik having to say anything into his headset.

“Time for bed, Mr. Hudson.”

Dean didn’t fight the Deputies – from the way he seemed to be shaking from head to toe, Sam wasn’t sure he had any fight left in him – meekly allowing himself to be led from the room, bare feet dragging on the floor as the two guards bore his weight between them.

The Warden followed close on his heels, a satisfied smile somehow darkening his sinister features.

Howie stood then, tugging on his jacket and sliding his PDA into his pocket. He made a move towards the door before stopping abruptly, pivoting, and retrieving Sam’s handgun, which he slipped into the other pocket. “Just in case.” He waved towards the door behind which Sam was clearly visible, a nasty smile spreading across his thin lips.

Sam scowled at him as he watched him scuttle from the room, all manner of curses popping into his head, some of which Dean, no doubt, would have been proud.

For a second, Sam just stood there, wondering what to do next, eyes sliding back to the monitor where Howie had been watching Dean, the picture now dark, as if the camera de-activated itself if there was no one present in the room.

The mural on the big Control Monitor had returned to normal, Dean’s picture still displayed there, although the colors were a little muted compared to how they had appeared before.

Sam was about to turn away from the darkened screens, everyone in Sherwood Falls apparently under the thrall of the enforced Lights Out, when he caught sight of Dean again, this time on a different monitor that was slightly smaller and a lot harder to see.

The two heavies appeared to have laid him out on a low metal-framed bed, wrists and ankles restrained by the same leather straps that had secured him to the chair. Either he was asleep or he was unconscious, because he wasn’t moving, and while that in itself would have caused Sam to freak out under ordinary circumstances, right now it was a blessed relief: At least he wasn’t screaming any more.

For right now, that had to be enough.

A small noise behind him startled Sam out of his emotionally wrung out haze, and he spun suddenly, squinting hard into the near-darkness.

“Hello?”

Eyes sweeping the room methodically as he had been taught since childhood, he thought he caught sight of something moving about six feet from where he was standing. “Hello?” he repeated. “Someone there?”

A tiny shuffling sound gave Sam the aural clue he needed, and he was across the room and on top of his unexpected roommate faster than a cheetah on an antelope.

“Who are you?” he demanded, grabbing two handfuls of shirt and yanking the room’s other occupant into a sitting position, light from the doorway falling across a startled face.

Sam drew in a stunned breath.

“Dean?”

The face gazing back at him was unmistakably that of his brother, pallid skin making his eyes seem unnaturally huge, pupils so big Sam could barely see the irises.

“Oh my God, Dean…” Sam momentarily forgot the Winchester Code, pulling his brother against him, the older man for once not resisting.

That was Sam’s first clue that something was wrong.

Car without an engine.

Lights are on, but no-one’s home.

He pulled back slightly, holding what was left of his brother at arms’ length, assessing him for injuries as best he could in the subdued lighting. Apart from a purple bruise across his left cheekbone, Sam couldn’t see any real damage.

Not on the outside, anyway.

“Don’t worry, Dean,” he said stoically, trying to keep the tremble out of his voice as his older brother’s eyes stared blankly at a point beyond his left shoulder. “I’m going to find a way to put you back together.”

***

When Dean finally tired of counting ceiling tiles, he figured it was probably safe to make his move.

He hadn’t heard the camera in the corner of the room make a sound in the time he’d spent lying here, at first pretending to be unconscious, and then finally risking opening cautious eyes.

The change in the Warden’s tone had been Dean’s first clue that Howie had either lost interest in him or just wasn’t watching him at the moment, tipping him off that this might be the best opportunity he was going to get.

That, and the fact that it was night time all of a sudden.

Right. Time to get this show on the road.

He grimaced slightly as he bent his fingers, struggling to shrug his watch lower down his wrist as he was inexplicably reminded of that time in Kentucky when he’d tried to convince Sam to dislocate his thumb after they’d been handcuffed by that invisible freak’s nut job of a brother.

Dislocation was, of course, a last resort, and at least on this occasion Dean had been presented with a ready-made Plan B right off the bat. Fortunately, the Warden hadn’t noticed that Dean’s photograph was no longer paperclipped to his file after it had tumbled to the floor at Dean’s feet just prior to his almost taking a nosedive onto the tiles.

As he pushed his watch against the bed beneath him, Dean slowly managed to reveal the little sliver of metal tucked between the strap and his wrist, bending his fingers a hell of a lot further than was strictly natural until he finally held the paperclip between them.

Stage One successfully accomplished.

Dean said a silent prayer of thanks to the Angel of Escaped Mental Patients when he confirmed that his restraints were locked rather than buckled, and after a few seconds of fumbling to unbend the paperclip against the mattress, and a few more seconds of awkward finger gymnastics, he finally had his left wrist free before proceeding to make short work of the other straps pinning him to the bed.

Another furtive glance at the mercifully motionless camera, and Dean was off the bed and dragging his clothes out of the closet where the Deputies had stored them earlier, positioning himself underneath the camera before dressing quickly, relieved to be back in his own clothes.

But these aren’t your clothes… the little voice in his head reminded him. This isn’t even your body…

“Shut up,” he muttered to himself, peering briefly through the door’s reinforced glass panel, out onto the empty corridor beyond, before examining the lock. Hmm. No way a paperclip was going to make a dent in that thing.

Alright. So he’d have to do this the old fashioned way.

Now if he could just find something to smash…

***

Sam had never seen Dean so…still.

The older brother – or what was left of him – was currently leaning against the wall, knees pulled up to his chin, head resting sideways on them while his vacant eyes had become permanently fixed on his kid brother.

Sam had found that kind of encouraging at first, as if there was still some shred of Dean-ness in there that recognized him.

But now it was just creepy.

Creepy and more than a little unnerving.

Sam had gone over the room twice since he’d woken, desperately trying to find another way out of this place. But there was nothing – no window, no magically insecure air conditioning vent, no wildly improbable sewer access cover.

“Why is it never like it is in the movies?” Sam muttered to himself, hands on hips as he made another fruitless visual scan of the room.

Which is when he realized he was an idiot.

Fumbling in his jeans pocket, the irritating absence of his gun and his cell phone were almost completely eradicated from his brain as his fingers lighted on something far more useful in his current predicament.

He grinned broad enough to light up a football field, and Dean raised his head from his knees to look up at him with even greater intensity.

“Howie,” Sam muttered, turning towards the door. “You’re an even bigger idiot than I am.”

Removing his lock pick from the slim plastic case, Sam wasted no time going to work on the door, the satisfying “click” of the tumblers almost as beautiful a sound as the final “clunk” as the door swung open in his hand.

“Bingo.”

Suddenly acutely aware that he really shouldn’t leave his broken older brother shut in the supply closet, Sam turned back into the small room, wedging the door open with his foot. “Dean…?” He gestured for his brother to follow, but the young man didn’t move, head returning to rest on his knees, eyes never leaving Sam’s.

Sam glanced out into the control room before heading back towards his brother, gently catching him by the arm and indicating that he should stand.

Dean’s hollow gaze had slid to the patch of light now spilling across the floor from the open doorway as if he didn’t quite understand what it was, but he didn’t resist when Sam carefully pulled him to his feet.

Sam swallowed, trying to ignore the sudden lump in his chest. Eyes fixed resolutely on Dean’s, he muttered, “Howie, you’re a dead man,” before gently guiding his brother towards the exit.

Dean followed obediently, motor skills apparently functioning perfectly, as if he had no difficulty moving as long as someone showed him where to go.

Sam bit his lip as he provided the necessary direction, leading Dean out into the control room where he blinked rapidly in the bright light.

Jeez, Dean must have been locked in that dark room for hours.

Sam shuddered at the thought as he tried to settle his older brother in Howie’s big control chair. But Dean wouldn’t have it, eyes so big when faced with the rapidly changing TV screens that Sam eventually had to settle for situating him on the floor near the control desk – okay under the control desk – where he couldn’t see the monitors, arms once again wrapped tightly around his knees.

Sam swallowed again, completely thrown by his seemingly invincible big brother’s sudden vulnerability, tearing his gaze away from him only with a supreme effort of will.

Perching himself on the edge of the control chair, his eyes scanned the panel in front of him before drifting up to the bank of monitors. Most of them were dark now, as if Howie actually had the decorum not to spy on his “cast” after Lights Out.

Somehow, Sam doubted that was the case. Goddamn voyeuristic piece of…

It was then that he realized Dean’s bed was empty.

He did a double take, for a second convinced he was looking at the wrong monitor. But the way the restraints were untidily scattered across the bed; the pile of hastily removed hospital attire discarded on the floor; the – hell, was that a paperclip? – glinting on the mattress as the moonlight slanted through the barred window: Everything in that room screamed Dean was here.

And then, of course, there was the way the image suddenly lurched to one side as someone out of shot started swinging at the camera with a piece of tubing ripped from the bed frame.

***

“Come and get me you fugly-ass bastards!” Dean yelled at the top of his lungs, his fifth swing at the camera finally taking out the lens with a pop and a shattering of glass.

Man that felt good…

He kept battering at the camera like Babe Ruth on steroids until the screech of metal on metal preceded the whole assembly finally coming away from its housing and crashing to the floor in a shower of sparks.

“Now that’s what I’m talking about!” he burst out, admiring his handiwork for a second before moving on to the door.

Although he knew his makeshift battering ram would do little damage to the door itself, he had every hope it would have the effect he was actually after.

“Hey!” he started yelling again. “Rock dudes!”

He took a vicious swing at the door, the tubing bouncing harmlessly off the toughened safety glass in the window. “You guys better get in here soon, before I get really pissed!”

The distant clump-clump-clump of heavily-booted feet alerted Dean to the approach of at least one of the Deputies, and he continued to wail on the door with renewed vigor, battering the hell out of it until a key finally ground in the lock and a placid-looking Deputy stepped through the open doorway, an evil-looking black stick in his hand that uncomfortably reminded Dean of a cattle prod.

“Dude, it’s about freakin’ time!” he taunted, eyeing the Deputy’s weapon warily as he took a cautious step backwards, mentally gauging how far he had to lure the big guy into the room before he stood a chance of getting past him and out through the door.

“You’re making a noise,” the Deputy told him, voice flat and emotionless. “You’ll disturb the other patients.”

“Too late, Dwayne,” Dean said with an apologetic shrug. “I think they’re already disturbed.”

“You need to calm down,” the Deputy continued, as if Dean hadn’t even spoken, taking another menacing step towards him before reaching out and snatching the tubing from Dean’s fingers as electricity arced blue across the electrodes at the end of his baton.

Dean gulped, beginning to suspect there may have been a slight flaw in his brilliant escape plan.

Glancing from the baton to the open doorway, Dean took a breath, mentally steeling himself for what would probably wind up being yet another stroll down Electric Avenue.

Now or never.

As Dean lunged for the doorway, the Deputy’s weapon swung around towards him with inhuman speed, the heat radiating from the sparking current actually making the hairs stand up on the back of Dean’s neck as the baton came within an inch of his skin…

…Just as a bright light flashed right in front of his eyes and a second Deputy fizzed into existence between Dean and the first Deputy’s weapon.

The second Deputy had a hand already entwined in Dean’s jacket at the shoulder, almost yanking him clear off his feet as he shoved the smaller man out of the way of the hungry current.

The first Deputy paused, frowning at his colleague.

“We have new orders,” the hulk hanging onto Dean announced. “The Sheriff wants this one taken back to the Warden.”

The first Deputy nodded, de-activating and holstering his weapon. “Acknowledged.”
“As you were,” the second Deputy continued, gripping Dean’s shoulders and starting to shove him towards the door. “I’ll take him.”

“Like hell you will!” Dean protested suddenly, trying to wrestle himself free of the Deputy’s intense grip. “I’m not going anywhere near that freak!”

The Deputy’s grimace never faltered, and he tugged Dean to his side before slapping a big hand over his captive’s mouth, eliciting a surprised grunt and a string of muffled expletives.

“Be quiet,” the Deputy ordered sternly, almost yanking Dean off his feet again before suddenly bending and whispering right in his ear, “Or Mushy gets it.”

Dean froze, eyes the size of saucers.

Mushy. Sam’s favorite stuffed toy when he was, like, four or something. Dean was always threatening to pull the little sausage dog’s ears off if Sam didn’t quit his yammering and go to sleep.

No. Freakin’. Way.

Dean squinted up into the Deputy’s dark eyes, trying to catch a glimmer of recognition to confirm what he thought he’d just heard. But all he saw was his own reflection.

The Deputy removed his hand from Dean’s mouth, muttering, “Now isn’t that better?” when Dean didn’t make a sound in protest as he was manhandled through the door.

Dean glanced behind them at the other Deputy, who was surveying the wreckage littering Dean’s room, before narrowing his eyes and squinting sideways at the guard as he allowed himself to be dragged down the hallway.

“Sam?” he whispered.

“This is weird,” the Deputy said in response, tugging Dean around a corner and down another long hallway, looking about himself furtively. “Like a very intense first person shooter game.”

Dean grunted. “Now I know you’re not Sam,” he said. “No way Geekboy would waste time playing video games.”

The Deputy smiled crookedly, and Dean almost shuddered at the appearance of such a familiar expression on a face other than Sam’s. “You don’t know as much about me as you think you do, bro.”

“You tell me you moonlighted as a stripper while you were at Stanford and I might just have to throw up,” Dean informed him, letting out a startled cry as the Deputy suddenly yanked him rather forcefully through an emergency exit.

“Dude –!”

“Sorry,” Sam said in the Deputy’s voice. “Don’t know my own strength yet.”

He led Dean into a stairwell, but the older Winchester stopped abruptly, looking up into the big guy’s unreadable eyes once more. “Wait!”

“What?”

“How…” Dean fumbled for the words. “How’d you… How’d you get in there, Sammy?”

Back in Howie Grumnik’s control room, Sam smiled at the monitor displaying the image of his brother staring fixedly at the Deputy.

“Howie had to go to work,” he explained with a grin. “Probably got Kim to thank for that.” He took a deep breath, steeling himself for the inevitable derisive comeback. “He – he managed to get a jump on me when I found his control room, but was dumb enough to lock me up with my lock pick in my pocket.”

Dean’s reply wasn’t quite as derogatory as Sam expected. “If he’s so dumb, how’d he get a jump on you?”

Sam bit his lip. If he told Dean the truth, he’d accuse him of chick flicking him, he just knew it. He sighed, the sound seeming odd falling from the lips of the burly Deputy. “I got distracted,” he admitted. “He – he was torturing you.”

Dean seemed momentarily taken off guard. “Oh,” he managed. Then, “But you got out?”

“And figured how to take control of one of his Deputies, yeah,” Sam agreed.

“I knew that big brain of yours would come in handy some day.”

“His computer system’s not exactly hard to figure out,” Sam admitted. “Kinda like Evil Mastermind 1.1 for Dummies. Even you could have figured it out.”

Dean scowled at the Deputy. “You see ‘geek’ anywhere on my resume?”

“You don’t have a resume.”

“Exactly. Which proves my point.”

Sam shook his head. “Yeah, well,” he said. “First thing’s first. We gotta find a way to get you out of here.”

“Dude,” Dean said, pointing at the Deputy’s belt. “You got keys. How hard can it be?”

The Deputy looked down, just as the camera fixed above their heads moved in the same direction, the big guard grinning Sam’s grin brightly.

Dean actually did shudder this time, and had to look away.

“There’s an exit at the bottom of the stairs,” Sam was saying.

“Won’t that be alarmed?”

“Not from the plans I’m looking at, no.” Sam had brought up a floor plan of the Sanatorium on one of the monitors, grateful that Howie was pedantic enough to have detailed maps and blueprints of every inch of his little fantasy land stored on his hard drive. “And like you said, I have keys.”

“Okay,” Dean nodded, turning and heading down the stairs. “Let’s go.” He turned back when the Deputy didn’t follow him. “Sam? You coming?”

“Yeah, hold on,” Deputy Sam said. “Just checking the best way out of the grounds…” He paused for a second, scanning the plans while he decided how to phrase his next sentence. “So…” he said slowly. “I found your body.” Yeah, Sam. Real subtle.

Dean froze, before turning back and looking up the stairs towards the Deputy and the camera over his shoulder. He didn’t say anything at first, taking a breath before finally managing, “I’m okay right? He didn’t – he’s not – done – anything to me?”

The Deputy shook his head. “No,” Sam assured his brother. “You’re fine. Just a little zombified.”

Dean raised a relieved eyebrow. “Night of the Living Dead zombified? Or daytime TV viewer zombified?”

“The latter,” Sam chuckled.

Dean heaved a sigh of relief. “Well that’s okay then. At least I’m not shedding body parts, right?”

“Who’s down there?” a deep voice suddenly grunted from above them, and Sam tilted the camera upwards, only to reveal another Deputy descending the flight of stairs.

Ripping the keys off “his” Deputy’s belt, he threw them at Dean before making a shooing gesture with the guard’s big hands. “Go!”

Dean just looked up at him as heavy footsteps echoed on the landing above his head. “Sam?” he questioned, a look of something akin to panic briefly crossing his face. “Go where?”

“Home,” Sam urged. “Your – your stepmom’s house.”

“Won’t that be the first place they’ll look?”

“Probably,” Sam admitted. “But that’s where they took the Impala,” he informed his brother, having already noticed the car on the feed from the camera positioned on the corner of the Hudsons’ street.

Dean nodded his understanding. “Quick getaway. Gotcha.” He took the flight of stairs in one jump, before again turning back. “Sam?”

“Would you just go?” Sam said shortly.

“Just take care of yourself, alright? And take care of me!”

Deputy Sam nodded as Dean disappeared out of sight just as the other guard rounded the corner onto the flight of stairs above him.

“Who were you talking to?” the approaching figure demanded, face contorting into a wary grimace.

Sam’s Deputy tapped his earpiece. “Sheriff,” he responded hopefully.

The other Deputy nodded slowly, before exiting the stairwell through the door behind his colleague. Sam turned his own Deputy to follow him, before releasing control back to the computer’s automation system.

“You take care too, Dean,” he muttered, eyes automatically moving to follow his brother’s progress on one of the other monitors.

***

So far, so good, Dean thought to himself, the pilfered keys easily getting him through the exit at the bottom of the stairwell. Now he just had to get out of the grounds.

Scanning the wide swath of lawn between his position and the razor-wired perimeter wall, he spotted a small service road off to his right which seemed to lead to the rear of the building in one direction, while sweeping down to a small gated exit in the other.

Seeing no guard station or security gatehouse, and eternally grateful to Howie for turning off the sun just when he especially needed the cover of darkness, Dean stealthily snuck around the building before bolting for the gate full tilt, expecting to hear the sound of Deputies fizzing into existence about him at any moment.

When that didn’t happen, and he appeared to have made it to the gate without any sign that he’d been detected, he began to thank his lucky stars… Just as the security camera above the gate swung in his direction. He froze, deer in the headlights, until the camera started to jiggle up and down dementedly, and he suddenly realized that it was Sam he should be thanking for the lack of security. Sam, who had control of the cameras, the Deputies, and pretty much Dean’s whole world right now.

Had Dean been a control freak, he might have found that rather disturbing.

Tentatively, he stepped right out in front of the camera and grinned like the cat who’d got the cream when no one materialized to torture him some more.

Turning and jamming the most likely looking key into the gate, he heard a satisfying “click” and as the gate swung open he couldn’t resist turning back to the camera and sticking his tongue out at what he hoped was his kid brother.

The camera started to whirr in short staccato bursts, and it took Dean a second to recognize Morse Code.

Dot dash. “A”… Dot dot dot. “S”… Dot dot dot. “S.”

Dean resisted the temptation to flip Sam his own method of signage, instead grinning broadly before slipping out of the gate and running like hell in the direction of the Hudson house.

Sam sighed loudly as he watched Dean beat a hasty retreat from the Sanatorium. Although his big brother had seemed reasonably okay, Sam realized that having pieces of his soul forcibly extracted from him had to have had some kind of effect on his psyche. Admittedly, if the rainbow light show going on above Dean’s head like some kind of freaky halo had represented the pieces that had been ripped away, then it had looked to Sam as if everything had been returned to Dean’s pretend body when the Warden had ceased and desisted with the whole torture thing.

Still. Sam couldn’t stop thinking about James Gregory and wondering whether, should he ever be able to figure out how to get Dean back, his brother would ever be whole again.

But then, Dean hadn’t exactly been whole even before he’d been soul-napped.

A small noise from beneath the control panel drew Sam’s attention briefly to the shell of his older brother, currently huddled in on himself apparently attempting to make himself as small and unobtrusive as possible.

Sam was even more convinced that it was the screens – and his own face displayed there – that was freaking Dean out.

He chewed his lip as he briefly wondered what he would do with what was left of his big brother should he not be able to figure out a way to return Dean’s soul to its rightful place in the universe.

He shuddered.

So not going to happen.

His gaze flitted back to the Control Monitor and its display of the mural in the center of town. Dean’s picture there had regained its original appearance, and Sam was becoming more and more convinced that this, somehow, was the key to the whole thing.

Delving into Howie’s exhaustive database, he frowned as he happened upon a folder labeled “Characters,” bringing up a list of names that seemed to include variations of all of those who had thus far been taken from Major Oak Mall. The Hudson family – Stephen, Lizzie, Mindy and Matthew – all appeared in yellow, a still image of each of them displayed next to their personal details under the heading “Bio.”

Beneath that was a blue file headed “Dean Hudson,” followed by a red file headed “Jackie Hudson,” and from her photograph, Sam recognized her as Jackie Mathers, a journalist for the local East Nottingham newspaper who had been one of the first to be taken. The file was labeled “Removed,” as was Dean’s, and there was a link there which took Sam to a folder entitled “Sanatorium” and another list of names. But whereas Dean’s listing was labeled “Temporary Transfer,” Stephen Hudson’s first wife’s was endorsed with the words “Permanent Resident.”

It was only when Sam clicked back into Dean’s file that he noticed the photograph was the same as the one that appeared within the mural, only this version appeared to be the source picture, a still image taken from a security camera.

Clicking to enlarge the picture, Sam squinted at the background behind his brother, which had been excised from the image in the mural.

And it was then that Sam experienced an epiphany.

Dean was standing in front of the very bank of TV monitors Sam now faced, a bright light reflecting off both the screens and Dean’s startled eyes.

Hurriedly bringing up the file image of Lizzie Hudson – Baker – whatever, Sam realized with a start that she was standing in the kids’ clothing store where she had collapsed, a bright light also bouncing off her blue eyes.

Which meant that the images of Dean and Lizzie and presumably all of the other inhabitants of Sherwood Falls which made up the town mural had been captured in the instant before their souls had been taken.

Which meant…

Sam slapped his hand against the desk.

He had to talk to Dean.

Right now.

***

Dean breathed a sigh of relief as he rounded the corner onto the Hudsons’ street and immediately spotted the Pretend Impala parked on their drive under the yellow streetlight.

Yeah, so it wasn’t his car. But it sure looked like his car.

Patting his jacket pockets, he quickly located his car keys before jogging across the street and up onto the sidewalk…

…Just as a Deputy materialized two inches from his face.

Stopping so abruptly he slipped backwards off the curb, Dean caught himself halfway between the ingrained fight or flight response before squinting up at the Deputy as he tried to determine whether he was friend or foe.

“Sammy?”

The Deputy grabbed Dean’s collar and pulled him back up onto the sidewalk, and for a second Dean thought maybe he’d misjudged the situation.

Until the Deputy suddenly burst out, “Dean, I got it!” with all the enthusiasm of puppy at his first picnic.

Dean tried to cover his overwhelming relief with a nervous grin and his trademarked ill-timed stab at humor. “Well take it someplace else, ’cause I sure as hell don’t want it…”

“Shut up for a second,” Sam snapped, once again forgetting the Deputy’s strength as he gave Dean what was intended to be a gentle shake but almost pulled his brother off his feet.

“Hey, enough with the manhandling, dude!”

“Sorry,” Sam apologized. “Can’t get used to this guy’s strength.”

“Yeah, a novelty for you I’m sure,” Dean observed, pushing the big Deputy away roughly. “Okay, so I found the car,” he added. “Now what, genius?”

“I think I know how to fix this.”

Sam was leaning over the panel in Howie’s control room, one eye on the monitor displaying Dean and the Deputy he’d commandeered, the other on a list of files he was hastily scanning. “It’s the mural, Dean. The one in the center of town.”

Dean frowned. “What about it? I know it’s not exactly the Mona Lisa, but…”

“You gotta destroy it.”

Dean’s frown deepened. “I gotta what?”

“Destroy it,” Sam repeated. “I think it’s what’s keeping you there. I think it’s what’s keeping you all there.”

“It’s a wall, Sam,” Dean pointed out. “And a virtual wall at that –”

“No, it’s not just a wall, Dean,” Sam insisted. “Remember that Amish belief? Photographs can steal a person’s soul?”

“Wait a second,” Dean interrupted. “You think those pictures on the wall are…”

“Are where Howie’s storing everyone’s souls, yes!” The look of enthusiastic excitement seemed so out of place on the Deputy’s face that Dean almost laughed. “They’re stills taken from the security camera footage at the exact second you were –”

“Soul-jacked?” Dean offered.

Sam shrugged, and weirdly enough, so did the Deputy. “Yeah. I think those pictures are anchoring you all to Howie’s little dream world. That’s how he’s hanging onto your souls.”

“Sam, you know how crazy that sounds?”

“Any crazier than having your soul ripped out by a security camera?”

“Good point,” Dean conceded. “So the mural. If we destroy it…?”

“Then,” Sam faltered. “Maybe…”

“Maybe?”

“Probably.”

“Maybe? Probably? That the best you got, Scully?”

Sam pulled a face that, thankfully, didn’t transfer onto the Deputy. “There’s some kind of crystal embedded into Howie’s computer,” he explained. “I think that maybe if I destroy that too…”

“There’s that ‘maybe’ word again, dude.”

Sam shook his head. “Well, ‘maybe’ is all we got right now.”

Dean drew a hand across his forehead, suddenly very tired and still more than a little shaky.

“Dean, you okay?” Sam asked.

“Not really Sammy,” Dean snapped. “I just got tortured remember? Kinda puts a crimp in a guy’s day.” He bit his lip and shook his head. “Crystals,” he muttered. “Freakin’ crystals. Jeez, Sam, this is one helluva limb to be going out on on a ‘maybe’…”

“I know,” Sam admitted. “But even Kim’s husband’s picture is still in the mural. It’s in black and white, but it’s there. Maybe we can even put him back together.”

Dean sighed. “So how do I destroy a freakin’ wall, Sam?” he asked.

The Deputy shrugged again. “You’ll think of something,” Sam assured his brother. “Destruction’s what you do best, right?”

Dean frowned. “It’s a wall, Sam. And I think I left my wrecking ball in my other jacket.”

“Dean –”

“Sam?”

“Dean?”

Dean glanced over Deputy Sam’s shoulder at the sound of the female voice suddenly calling his name. Mindy was hanging out of her bedroom window, bleary-eyed and rumpled.

“Hey Mindy,” he said, smiling at the girl before glancing back up at the Deputy. “Okay, I’m thinking,” he said. “You just make sure you destroy that itty bitty crystal while I’m busy demolishing a wall.”

The Deputy grinned. “I will. You take care, bro.”

Dean looked up at him solemnly, eyes drifting to the camera behind him. “Yeah. You too.”

“Seeya soon,” Sam added as the Deputy fizzled out of existence.

Dean sighed again. “Yeah,” he muttered, trudging up the Hudsons’ drive towards the Impala. “Soon.”

He stopped beneath Mindy’s window, looking up at her. “You okay?” he asked casually.

Mindy nodded, taking in the dark circles beneath Dean’s eyes. “You?”

Dean was surprised by the genuine concern in the girl’s voice. But then he remembered she’d already lost a mother to the Sanatorium. A pretend mother, sure, but a mother all the same.

Slapping on his brightest grin, he nodded reassuringly. “It’ll take more than a freak with a leather fetish to break me,” he assured her, not entirely sure which of them he was trying to convince. “Now go back to sleep. With any luck, next time you wake up, you’ll be home.”

***

The crystal and the mural. They were the key to this. They were the key to getting Dean back. Getting everyone back. Sam was convinced of it, now more than ever.

He tried to reach between the monitors and the miasma or wiring, but just couldn’t get to the little hunk of mineral nestling within the circuitry. He’d just have to find another way to take the thing out of the equation, that was all.

He still didn’t quite understand how Howie was using the crystal in conjunction with the security cameras. And how the hell he was using it to transport people’s souls to Sherwood Falls. He knew crystals were often attributed with mystical or supernatural properties, but still… Howie just didn’t seem the kind of guy who would have the smarts to devise a scheme like this.

“You break it, you pay for it. Store policy.”

Sam spun at the sound of Howie Grumnik’s voice, cursing himself for a second time for letting the security guard sneak up on him.

“You’re not very good at this whole ‘stealth’ thing, are you?” Grumnik held Sam’s gun in one steady hand, motioning him away from the control panel with a flick of the barrel.

Sam swore silently to himself, trying to position himself between Howie’s line of sight and the monitor where Dean could clearly be seen getting into the Impala. “You hit six feet and stealth kinda goes out the window,” Sam replied, pointedly looking down at Howie as he did his best to wring every last ounce of intimidation value out of his considerable height.

Unfortunately, Howie may have been a good ten inches shorter than Sam, but he was the one holding the gun, and Sam was the one with his hands held in the air.

“I see you’ve found your brother,” the guard said, casting a dismissive glance in the direction of the dazed-looking young man currently crouched behind Sam, as far back underneath the control desk as he could get. “Touching reunion, I’m sure.”

Sam bit his cheek, but said nothing, merely scowling at Howie for a few seconds before finally asking, “So what happens now? You planning on torturing me too?”

Howie smiled lopsidedly. “I’ve got other plans for you,” he replied coldly, again motioning Sam further from the control panel.

The younger Winchester risked a quick glance behind him as a faint whirr sounded in response to Howie touching a button on the panel to his left.

The camera in the corner of the room had swung in Sam’s direction, and the young man had the decidedly odd experience of seeing the back of his own head displayed on one of the monitors next to Howie. He frowned, trying not to seem too interested in the bank of TV screens, as the Impala suddenly zipped across one of the monitors behind the security guard.

“I don’t get it,” he said at length, figuring if he could just keep Howie talking he might buy enough time for Dean to get to the mural and do his thing. Whatever his thing was going to be. “How’d you come up with this, Howie? The crystal’s the key, right?”

Howie let a self-satisfied smile creep across his features. “You think you’re going to trick me into revealing my whole diabolical scheme, huh?” he asked. “Who d’you think you are? James Bond?”

“Never could get that English accent,” Sam admitted.

“You and Sean Connery both,” Howie agreed. He smiled an oily smile. “Still. You’re not going to be around much longer, are you Mr. Winchester? So what could it hurt to put you out of your intellectual misery?”

Sam returned the smile, eyes determinedly not looking at the monitor over Howie’s shoulder. “A little monologuing never hurt anyone, did it?”

***

Sam was so going to owe him for this one, Dean decided. So this wasn’t his Impala. Deep down, he knew that. But she looked like his Impala. Kinda felt like his Impala. Kinda purred like his Impala… And his baby had already been through more trauma these last few months than your average stockcar.

But he really wasn’t coming up with any alternatives.

Of course, the damage to himself might be worse than the damage to the Pretend Impala. But then, he was only a Pretend Dean, right? James Gregory: He’d killed himself and lived to tell the tale. Sort of. Kinda messed up by all accounts. But he’d made it back to the real world in one piece. Okay, several pieces. But he’d not had Sam watching his back, had he?

Dean took a deep breath and floored the gas pedal.

***

“So how the hell did you get your hands on a soul-stealing magic crystal, Howie?” Sam asked, eyes still resolutely avoiding the monitor at the security guard’s shoulder, where he could currently see the Impala screeching towards the center of Sherwood Falls.

Howie grinned. “Voodoo priest in New Orleans sold it to me,” he replied, fingers stroking the handgun affectionately.

Sam figured the guy wished he had a fluffy white cat to stroke too. “No way you know a voodoo priest,” he said disbelievingly.

Howie’s “evil mastermind” expression faltered slightly. “Do too,” he replied, sticking his bottom lip out like a petulant six-year-old.

“I don’t believe you,” Sam insisted, folding his arms across his chest. “Where’d you really get it?”

Howie sighed. “Alright, I got it off eBay,” he admitted, sighing. “But the guy selling it said he was a voodoo priest…”

“And you believed him?” Sam scoffed.

Howie straightened. “It worked though, didn’t it?”

Sam couldn’t really deny the truth of that statement.

“And the whole security camera thing was my idea. Took me months to work out the details…”

“Howie, you need to get out more,” Sam said, suddenly sounding like he was channeling Dean from somewhere. “Find yourself a nice girl. Have a couple of kids. You watch way too much TV, man.”

“But it’s my TV show,” Howie insisted. “My world. I’m God there, man. God. Those people have to do whatever I say whenever I say it. I press this button –” he reached over and pointed to one of the controls on the nearest panel. “It’s day time. I press this one, it’s night. They’re so in awe of me, they do whatever I say whenever I say it. I say jump, they say how high…”

“They’re scared of you, Howie,” Sam interrupted. “That’s why they obey you. You’re ruling through fear not awe. They don’t respect you. They don’t think you’re God. They think you’re a sad little man with a God-complex who doesn’t have a life so has to invent a virtual one.”

Howie’s ears had turned a furious shade of pink. “Shut up. You don’t know anything about me.”

Sam took a step towards him. “Just like you don’t know anything about Dean,” he said. “Yet you didn’t mind torturing him with your half-truths, did you?”

“He needs to learn to obey orders. He needs to learn respect –”

“Dean has no problem obeying orders, Howie,” Sam informed him. “He’s just never going to obey yours. He’s never going to respect you if the only way you can get him to do what you want is by threatening to hurt me. Nobody responds well to blackmail, Howie, and none of your little ‘cast’ will respect you if that’s the only way you have to control them. They never will.”

Howie’s eyes narrowed, fingers tightening on the handgun. “You’re wrong,” he said. “They respect me. They respect me plenty. And so will your brother. When I show him what I can do. When I show him what I can do to you…”

***

“Sammy, you better be right about this,” Dean muttered, the Pretend Impala screaming round a corner and onto the main road into Sherwood Falls’ town square.

The tires squealed in protest as he jammed his foot even harder against the gas pedal, sweaty fingers struggling to maintain their steely grip on the steering wheel as he aimed the big black car directly at the little garden adorning the center of Howard Grumnik’s fantasy sandbox.

The little garden and the big, brightly-colored mural spread across the wall beyond.

“Ah crap, they don’t pay me enough for this,” Dean spat, gritting his teeth and squeezing his eyes tightly shut as the speedometer hit seventy and the Pretend Impala mounted the curb with a crash.

***

“So – so what exactly are you planning to do to me, Howie?” Sam asked, nervously eyeing the monitor over the security guard’s shoulder, where the Impala was currently a black blur on Main Street, streaking towards the mural with a roar of its V8 and no sign of slowing down.

Dean…

Grumnik smiled as if he had all the time in the world. “See this button?” he said, pointing at a big red control on the panel mid-way between where the two men faced each other. “I push that and you’re gone forever. No coming back. No curtain calls. No re-runs. And you’re brother – all of them – they’ll know I’m serious; they’ll know I’m a force to be reckoned with; they’ll know my power. And they’ll obey me. They’ll respect me. They’ll have no choice.”

“You just don’t get it, do you, Howie?” Sam said, taking another step towards the security guard as the camera began to whirr behind him and the monitor displaying the back of Sam’s head zoomed in a little more at the touch of Howie’s finger on a slider switch.

“I push this button,” Howie continued as if Sam hadn’t spoken, “and your soul will be sent so far away your brother will never find you. No one will. You’ll just be vapor on the ether; lost in the circuitry.” He grinned, a faraway look in his eyes. “Wonder how much I’d get for what’s left of the two of you if I sold you on eBay?”

Sam wrinkled his nose in disgust. “You’re nuts, man,” he announced. “You know that, right?” He took another step towards Grumnik, the camera behind him continuing to whirr as Howie refocused the lens.

“Hold still –”

“C’mon, Howie,” Sam continued, taking another step forward as on the screen behind Grumnik the Impala mounted the curb and began to careen through the garden surrounding the clock tower. “You don’t have the guts to do that to me –”

Howie grinned at him, a cold, evil grin that sent a shiver down Sam’s back. “Wanna bet? I’m God. I can do anything I want. Anything. All I have to do is press this button –”

Sam inclined his head in the direction Howie was pointing. “What, that button there?”

***

Dean remembered that old adage about a person’s life flashing before their eyes in the seconds immediately prior to their death.

But all he saw were crocuses.

Crocuses and bricks. Lots of bricks. Brightly colored bricks that from a distance made up the faces of every person who had been soul-jacked into Sherwood Falls – Lizzie, Mindy, Matthew, Stephen; Jackie, James Gregory and even Dean himself.

But this close, they were just bricks. Individual blocks of color that didn’t signify a thing.

Like pixels on a TV screen.

And then there was a sound like a train wreck and Dean saw nothing at all.

Not even rainbows.

***

Howie turned as the almighty screech of the Pretend Impala plowing into the mural at seventy-five miles per hour tore from the speakers around him.

And that was all the distraction Sam needed.

Covering the distance between them in two long strides, Sam’s hand was on the barrel of the gun, wrenching it from Howie’s grasp as he spun the little security guard around in front of him, directly in line with the whirring camera that had previously been focused on the back of Sam’s head but was now zoomed right in on Howie Grumnik’s startled face.

Sam ducked as he brought his hand down hard on the big red button that Howie had been at such great pains to point out to him.

“That button there, right?”

The look of surprise on Howie’s face was the last thing Sam saw before a bright flash lit up the entire room, Grumnik collapsing in a heap to the floor as the crystal pulsed wildly before gradually dulling to black.

Sam aimed the gun without hesitation, firing off two rounds in quick succession, the crystal shattering into a million tiny shards as a deep rumble seemed to shake the very ground beneath his feet and the room was lit up in glorious Technicolor, rainbows so bright he had to shut his eyes against them shooting upwards and dissipating across the ceiling with a whoosh that took Sam’s breath away.

Breathing hard, he opened his eyes cautiously as a fizz, a shower of sparks and an anticlimactic pop preceded each of the TV screens going dark, winking out one by one, like dominoes toppling from the place where the crystal had been.

Then only the Control Monitor remained, and Sam’s breath hitched in his throat as he caught sight of the mangled black Chevrolet Impala buried beneath a mountain of broken bricks, just before that screen went dark too.

Sam closed his eyes, almost deafened by the sudden silence surrounding him, not wanting to look at the form of Howard Grumnik staring up at him with vacant, unseeing eyes.

“Sammy?”

Sam started at the sound of the familiar voice, momentarily frozen in place as his eyes snapped open and he sought out the source.

Better than 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround Sound, that was for damn sure.

Sam dove across the room to where his big brother sat huddled beneath the control console, eyes big and skittish as they darted about him, checking out his surroundings as if he’d just woken from a very bad dream

“Dean?” Sam crouched down in front of his brother, hands on Dean’s shoulders. “Dean? You with me?”

Dean eyed Sam thoughtfully before his face crumpled into a grimace. “Man, you are so not the first thing I wanted to see in the Afterlife…”

Sam laughed, more in relief than anything else, fingers gripping Dean’s shoulders so hard the older brother yelped.

“Dude –!”

“Sorry,” Sam apologized. “Guess I don’t know my own strength.”

***

“So everyone’s okay?” Sam asked nervously, sitting forward in the uncomfortable blue hospital chair as Kim handed him a Styrofoam cup of coffee.

“Looks like it,” the mall manager replied, wistfully eyeing the people periodically exiting the double doors opposite. Pale but in one piece. Awake and alive. Loved ones there to greet them. All as it should be. She met Sam’s gaze with a solemn one of her own, reaching out and squeezing his hand gratefully. “Even James.”

Sam smiled at that. “He’s going to be alright?”

“The doctors say he should be home in a few days.”

“That’s great news, Kim. Really.”

Kim nodded her agreement, the smile genuine as it lit up her face. She turned back to the double doors leading from the treatment room, where each of Howie Grumnik’s victims were currently being assessed. “And Dean? He’s okay?”

Sam followed Kim’s gaze to where his brother was leaning on the wall next to the doorway. “With Dean, ‘okay’ is kind of a relative term. But he’s as sane as he ever was, if that answers your question.”

Two teenagers chose that moment to exit the treatment room, momentarily swallowed up into the arms of a middle-aged couple who had been waiting anxiously in the chairs opposite Sam and Kim.

The girl looked up after finally managing to disengage herself somewhat from her mother’s crushing embrace, smiling brightly as she caught sight of Dean standing just a couple of feet away.

“Hey big brother,” Mindy greeted him with a wink. “I hear you wrecked that bitchin’ car of yours.”

Dean grinned at her knowingly. “Got another one in the parking lot,” he told her. “You and Matt wanna come for a spin later?”

Matthew’s eyes lit up. “For real?”

“Oh, it’s definitely the real deal this time, kiddo,” Dean assured him.

“Thank you,” Julie Tyler said suddenly, reaching out and putting a hand on Dean’s forearm. “For bringing my kids back.”

Dean shrugged sheepishly as he caught sight of Lizzie Baker being hugged uncontrollably by a sobbing kid with blonde pigtails. “Thank my brother,” he said, nodding in Sam’s direction. “He took down the bad guy.”

“While you took down the wall,” Sam added, standing and moving towards his brother.

Kim followed, holding out a hand towards Dean, which he took uncertainly. “Haley was right about you boys,” she told them. “I ever hear of any other desperate people in weird situations, I’ll be sure to give them your number.”

Dean glanced down at the envelope Kim had put in his hand, whistling slightly as he peered inside and examined the contents. “I dunno,” he said uncertainly, slipping the cash into his jacket pocket. “This working for a living’s a real bitch…”

***

The security camera hummed gently to itself as it panned slowly around the Day Room of Locksley Residential Care Home, pausing briefly as its focus swept across each of the residents in turn.

Looking. Looking for someone.

The lens whirred as it finally framed the image of the pale figure sitting in the wheelchair by the large bay window, dark empty eyes staring sightlessly out onto the rolling countryside beyond.

Soulless.

But that could be fixed.

One day, the entity currently peering through the lens of Camera 27 would fix the man slumped obliviously in the wheelchair by the window.

One day, it would find its way back out of this cold circuitry, out of the ether, out of this nothingness and back into the body of Howard Grumnik.

Where it belonged.

THE END

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