Season Two

Episode Fifteen: Abyss

By Tree

Part Two

He was running, his booted feet coming down on dry twigs and foliage, crunching loudly with each step, although he couldn’t hear it over the raucous noise that seemed to surround him. To his left, he caught the briefest flash of movement, but it was gone when he tried to focus on it again. Not that he was surprised; this had been going on for the better part of the day; run this way, spot the creature, run that way, spot the creature again, run a different way. To say that he felt like they were being toyed with was putting it mildly. The creature was smart, shrewd, and as Sam had so eloquently pointed out, a near-perfect hunter. And they were prey. So they did what prey did best: they ran.

To his right, Haley pulled up by his side. Her dark hair clung to her face, perspiration mixing with dirt and several thin trickles of blood from where stray branches had reached out and nicked her as she tore through the Colorado forest. She leaned forward, the palms of her hands pressed into her knees as she breathed heavily.

“Where is it?” she asked between gasps.

“I don’t know. Close. It hasn’t given up,” he answered, looking around warily.

Within seconds, Sam and Ben joined them in the clearing, both of them breathless and weary. Haley straightened and moved over to her brother, placing an arm about his shoulders in an effort to comfort him. In turn, Sam moved over to his brother, noticing how Dean was still carefully watching the surrounding tree line.

“What are we going to do, Dean?” he asked as he approached. “We’ll never survive another night out here in the woods with that thing. It’ll pick us off one by one. Hell, we’ll be lucky to make it through the afternoon.”

Dean started to reply, wanting to ask his brother if it looked as though he had been recently struck by divine lightning and given all the secrets to the universe, but instead, another burst of movement in the brush silenced him. The .45 came up in his hand immediately and he fanned the woods in front of him, searching for the beast even though he knew that there was little chance of actually spotting it.

He was about to relax when another of the creature’s mimicked cries sounded out from behind the group. The foursome all spun toward the noise, Haley and Ben once again looking panicked, while Sam and Dean gathered them for yet another sprint through the forest.

They headed out again, as they had been doing since daybreak, since finding Roy’s body. Running in a direction that Dean could only hope was the way out of the woods and back towards safety. But the more they ran, the more the wendigo harried them. Lightning fast, it was behind them one second and then in front of them the next.

There was no way they were going to escape it and deep down he knew it. In the end, they were all going to end up ripped to shreds, just like Roy. He failed them, failed them all, saw it in each of their eyes every time they looked at him, but Sam was the worst. Sam’s eyes accused him for following those coordinates; Dad’s coordinates. Dad wasn’t here, had never been here, and Sam had been right. Dad had set them up and now they were all going to die.

Dean took Haley by the hand, pulling her along with him as he coaxed her to run just a little faster. Just a few yards behind them, Sam and Ben were trailing, the young kid just not able to keep up the pace. Dean glanced back just in time to see Ben stumble over a half-buried branch and go down hard. He saw Sam stop to help the dark-haired teen up to his feet, but he and Haley were moving too fast to stop and render any help themselves. Besides, Sam was smart, he could take care of the kid and catch up to them; they had to keep moving.

Haley rounded a large Douglas Fir, its trunk so huge that for a moment she disappeared from Dean’s sight. He was about to call out to her to wait on him when Ben’s scream tore through the forest. Dean halted immediately, pulling up short as the cry was followed by the howl of the wendigo. Haley was instantly back at his side, fear for her brother apparent in the wideness of her eyes and the lines creasing her forehead. She pushed to go past him, but Dean reached out and restrained her, quieting her as he listened intently for any further sounds.

The woodlands around them went silent, not a single noise broke through the midday calm; not a bird, not a cricket, not even the wind. Dean could feel his heart pounding in his chest, could hear Haley’s ragged breathing next to him. He strained to pick up any sound of Sam or Ben, knowing that they should have caught up by now.

“Sammy! SAM!” he shouted. Haley joined him with a similar chorus of calls to her brother.

When there was still no response, Dean moved off in the direction that he’d last seen Sam and Ben. He couldn’t have taken more than two steps, when Haley’s scream spun him back around.

She couldn’t have been more than a step behind him and he’d assumed that she was keeping up, but in that split second that he’d taken his eyes off of her the creature had sprung from the thick brush and grabbed her. Dean only caught a fleeting glimpse of her blue-gray jacket and brown hair as she was whisked off at near-blinding speed into the dense forest, her screams echoing behind her.

His .45 in hand, Dean chased after the abducted young woman, firing blindly at the blur that dragged her into the thickening green cover. He knew he stood little chance of hitting, much less killing the creature. In all likelihood, he was at greater risk of wounding Haley. But in his mind, clouded with fear, anger and frustration, he rationalized that death by his hand was preferable to what awaited her as her screams began to fade into the distance.

When the weapon clicked empty, he stopped chasing, silence once again returning to Blackwater Ridge. Dean looked around, suddenly realizing that he had run further away from Sam in his haste to save Haley. Replacing the clip on the automatic, he turned back the way he came at a dead run, shouting out Sam’s name as his feet tore through the thick underbrush.

He reached the clearing faster than he anticipated, relieved when he spotted the sleeve of Sam’s brown Carhartt peeking out from around the edge of a pine.

“Sam!” he yelled, approaching the tree.

“Sammy!”

“Dammit, Sam,” Dean called out, grabbing a piece of his brother’s jacket as he approached. “You jackass, I’ve been screaming my lungs out. Where the hell have you been? That sonofabitch got Haley. Where’s Ben? Did it get …”

Dean’s tirade stopped mid-sentence as his gentle tug on Sam’s arm caused his brother to slump over limply towards the ground. He quickly dropped, catching Sam before he hit the forest floor.

“Sam, what’s wro …” The words began, but were choked off as Dean stared in horror at the ragged wound across his brother's neck. Sam’s lifeless eyes stared blankly skyward, his head lolling in Dean’s arm as he began to rock back and forth.

“Aw, Sammy, nooo,” he wailed, hugging his brother’s body close to his chest, feeling Sam’s still-warm blood saturate his shirt but not caring.

They were all dead; Roy, Ben, Haley, and now Sam. He should have stopped them when he had the chance. He should have listened to Sam when his brother wanted to leave the woods the first night. His own stupid pride and blind trust in his father had gotten them all killed. So caught up in his own torment, Dean barely registered the wendigo’s nearby growl.

Consumed by grief, Dean continued to rock his dead brother back and forth, one hand gently wiping away splattered blood that marred Sam’s face. He vaguely noticed the creature enter the clearing, only glancing up as it snarled at him, before he returned his attention back to Sam.

The thing howled again, its distorted body flexing out nearly transparent, yet blood-stained appendages as it raged at the human that dared to ignore it. The wendigo moved closer, its claws still trailing bits of flesh while jagged, yellowed teeth appeared in a misshapen mouth that bore the traces of the creature’s most recent meal. Still, Dean didn’t budge.

Nearly on top of him, the wendigo’s eyes glowed red in the dying afternoon sunlight. If the beast was in any way perplexed by the lack of fear or defense coming from the young hunter, it wasn’t apparent as it closed in. Dean gently laid Sam down to the ground, being careful to hold his brother’s head as though the slightest jolt would somehow awaken him from a much needed slumber. Once Dean was satisfied that Sam’s body had been placed out of harm’s way, he rose to his feet.

Face to face with the creature, so close now that its fetid breath assailed him, Dean stared blankly at the wendigo. It paused only for a moment before it lashed out at him, it’s claws striking his left shoulder and continuing down across his chest, flaying open his skin in deep gouges and dropping Dean down to one knee.

He held back every sound, biting down on his bottom lip. The pain he was feeling had nothing to do with the physical attack his body was enduring. The wendigo moved in further, this time its left arm catching Dean above his right hip, claws impaling into his abdomen and ripping upwards, stopping only as they became entangled at the base of his ribcage.

Dean gasped as his mouth suddenly filled with blood and his vision began to fade. He fought to stay upright, glancing over to Sam’s body just two feet away. The wendigo grabbed him, claws sinking into his shoulder as it pulled him to his feet and then beyond. It drew him close, as though it wanted to look at this prey that had stood so passively by while it shredded it to pieces.

With glazed eyes, Dean looked back. He knew it wouldn’t be long now, a minute or two before he finally bled out. He just didn’t care anymore. What more did he deserve? Sam was dead.

As the wendigo bent its head down toward Dean’s neck, its sharp, canine-like teeth puncturing his skin, he looked one last time at his dead brother. With his final breath, Dean screamed out Sam’s name to the surrounding Colorado mountains.

The scream echoed in his head, pounding between his ears like a hammer. Dean flashed awake, eyes opening, closing, and opening again as he struggled for lucidity. During one of the opening/closing sequences, Dean realized that there was a bright light shining in his eyes. As his other senses reported in for duty, he became aware of words being spoken, a voice, male but not familiar.

The last tendrils of the nightmare clung to his mind like a spider’s web, pulling at him as he struggled to come alert. He could still feel his heart racing and the rawness in his throat from screaming Sam’s name. He remembered Colorado, remembered that he and Sam had been trying to track down their father, following the coordinates that Dean had found in John’s journal. But it was the memories after that seemed off, twisted in a way only a nightmare could produce.

Everything had felt real, too real. But it wasn’t, was it? No, Haley had lived, and so had Ben. They had rescued Tommy and all made it out alive, most definitely including Sam. Their dad had never set them up; he never would have done that.

Dean shifted, trying to push himself upright to see the face that was attached to the strange-sounding words that were still swarming around his head. The pain that struck his shoulder was as instantly crippling as had been the vicious claws of the nightmare wendigo when it tore through his flesh. But that made sense didn’t it? He and Haley had been captured by the creature, dragged back to its cave and hung up like food in a larder.

That was it! He was still in the cavern, still hanging, still waiting for Sam to find the trail of Peanut M&M’s and come save his ass. Where the hell was his brother? But the bright light was shining into his eyes again, and Dean was reasonably certain that wendigo didn’t have penlights. Then there were more words; words he couldn’t understand, in Latin, but not, more guttural. Where the hell was Sam? Could wendigo talk? Could someone please turn off that friggin’ bright light?

Dean struggled up once more. Up? Wait, wasn’t he hanging in the cave? Yet now it felt like he was lying flat on the worst motel mattress of his life. And what was that smell? Had Sam checked them into some really nasty flop house of a motel? No, he was in the cave, hanging, and the smell was the rotting corpses surrounding him and the stench of the creature.

Dean pulled against what he thought was the rope suspending him from the ceiling of the cave, his mind incorporating the pain of his damaged shoulder into the confused jumble of reality and dream-state. While he tried desperately to free himself from the wendigo’s snare in his mind, his physical body writhed helplessly on the filthy bedding below him.

He chanced opening his eyes once more, relieved when the brain-melting light was absent, less than pleased when he found that his vision was basically one giant blur regardless. Dean still couldn’t move his arms, but that somehow didn’t panic him nearly as much as the hazy, unfamiliar face that hovered over him now.

Even more confused, caught between the memory, the nightmare, and the strange piece of reality that was occurring before him, Dean did the one thing that seemed true and reliable; he called out for his brother.

“Saaammmyyy!”

The figure before him drifted closer still. Almost within view, Dean could make out a white coat with a name embroidered above the pocket. The figure leaned in, whispering something in that same strange language. Dean was about to question the stranger, ask him who he was, and ready to tell him to either speak in English or to shut the hell up. But before he had the chance to utter the first word of defiance, Dean felt a sharp stick in his neck and saw the white-coated figure withdraw an ominous-looking needle and syringe.

Dean thrashed about again, pain in his shoulder driving him back into the relative safety of his mind. As the injection caused the room around him to go dim, he closed his eyes and felt himself sucked back into the darkness of the wendigo’s lair.

* * * *

Doctor Kurt Vogler lifted the empty syringe from the young man’s neck, watching as his “patient’s” eyes rolled back and finally slammed shut. He smiled, pleased with himself for having found such an excellent source of untapped mental fodder. Just in this first session, he’d already fed richly enough to be sated for several days.

Standing there, he looked down at the dark haired man lying before him. This one had been more difficult than usual. Falsifying discharge and transfer papers was always more risky than when the patients were truly crazy, but from what Vogler had read on the ER report, this was one he simply couldn’t afford to pass up.

Still, at least he had managed to move the young man without much notice. It didn’t hurt that he was so well known and respected at York Hospital. No one had questioned the transfer when he had ordered it, and no one had seemed to notice that the patient’s name didn’t match anyone currently admitted. Once he had Dean Hammett safely tucked away at Harrisburg under another name, no one would be the wiser.

Before him, the young man twisted on the sweat-stained mattress and groaned loudly. Vogler stepped forward, reaching down to check the straps across the chest of the straightjacket. He knew they were snug, knew there was no way the young man could get out of them, even if he hadn’t had an injured shoulder to begin with. Still, there was nothing like adding a little discomfort to the mix. Pain always seemed to add just a little "flavor" to the meal. Giving the strap a sharp tug, Vogler smiled again as he watched the grimace splay across the unconscious man’s face.

Vogler closed his eyes, his hand reaching down to touch the twitching form below him. He tilted his head back, savoring the sheer adrenaline that was rushing through the man, siphoning it off of him like a hungry animal. He hadn’t planned on taking again so soon, but why pass up a good thing?

Outside the room, the sounds of other patients echoed throughout the hallways. Yelling, screaming, begging; audible responses to delusions, psychoses, and madness in general. Within the small drab cell, Vogler ignored all the external disturbances, his attention solely focused on the one “patient” before him.

Yes, there may have been others before this one, but to Vogler, none may ever have compared to the fertile ground of horrors and deep-seated fears that he’d found in this mind; the mind of a hunter.

* * * *

Early afternoon and the hazy sunshine warmed the interior of the Impala as Sam pulled into the motel parking lot. He rubbed wearily at his eyes, not having slept nearly enough before returning to search for the elusive gargoyle. Pulling the keys from the ignition, he figured a quick shower might help refresh him before he went to pick up Dean from the hospital. Truth be told, he wouldn’t be very surprised to open the motel room door and find his sure-to-be-pissed brother sitting on one of the beds, glaring at him.

Actually, Sam pretty much expected that as soon as Dean woke up, he would sign himself out, likely yelling, ranting and cursing, albeit more coherently than last night. Hell, Dean would be so angry at him, that he’d probably not even wait for Sam to pick him up, choosing instead to walk the short distance back to the room. So, it was a bit of a surprise when Sam swung open the door and found a quiet and empty room.

“Okay, so he’s really pissed at me and decided not to come back here. Probably found a bar that’s already open and decided on his own brand of self-medicating,” Sam mused.

But in the back of his mind, the little voice that always warned when things were a tad off, was already whispering. Sam reached in his pocket for his cell. Maybe Dean had called and he had just missed it during his rooftop reconnaissance. Scanning through the menu, he saw that there weren’t any missed calls.

“Jumping to conclusions,” he mumbled to himself, shrugging. “Most likely, he found some hot nurse and is on his third or fourth sponge bath by now.”

Sam dialed the hospital, asking to be connected to his brother’s room when the woman’s voice answered. She paused momentarily, only to return to the line and inform Sam that there wasn’t any patient listed by that name. Perplexed, Sam tried one of their other aliases, although he was relatively certain he recalled which one Dean had used when they had registered in the Emergency Department last night.

Still, the answer was the same, no Dean Hammett, or Winchester or for that matter anyone even with Dean as a first name was currently listed as an in-patient. As Sam waited on the other end of the line, nervously chewing on the edge of one fingernail, the woman’s voice finally returned.

“I’ve found him, Mr. Hammett. You’re brother was discharged from the ER this morning just before seven,” she announced.

“Discharged?” Sam repeated. “Seven this morning? I left him just after five and they were moving him upstairs. How could he have been discharged at seven?”

“I don’t know sir. I can only tell you what it says in the computer,” she answered.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Thanks,” he mumbled quickly before disconnecting the call.

Frustrated, Sam tossed the phone onto the nearest bed, dropping onto the worn floral spread right behind it. He ran a sweaty hand through an equally sweaty mop of hair, his earlier plan to shower now forgotten in the worry over Dean.

He just couldn’t see his brother managing to make his way from the hospital just two short hours after Sam had left him in a heavily medicated state. Not to mention, that no matter how angry Dean would have been, eventually, he would have shown up back at the motel if for no other reason than to have showered and changed himself. Jumping up from the bed, Sam darted over to the dark duffle that lay at the end of the opposite bed.

It was still in the same position as Dean had left it the night before. A quick look inside didn’t reveal that anything was missing or changed. He quickly canvassed the room, but like the bag, it appeared as unchanged as when he’d left it earlier.

Even more worried, Sam grabbed his cell and the keys from the bed and headed for the car. He wasn’t even sure where to start other than the last place he’d seen Dean.

As he pulled the motel room door closed behind him, part of him hoped that maybe the lady at the hospital had been wrong. Maybe he’d get there and find Dean propped up in bed, ready to rip him a new one. At this point, even if he knew that Dean was shacked up with some candy striper, he would have breathed a sigh of relief. But as the Impala roared to life, that nagging voice beckoned again at the back of Sam’s mind, reminding him that things were never that simple when it involved a Winchester.

* * * *

Dean burst through the door of the rustic cabin just ahead of Sam. He held the .45 at arm's length, sweeping back and forth as he led the way from room to room. He could feel the rage boiling up inside him, the strong desire to give in to the overwhelming force deep within him that had been waging war for his very soul for the past couple of weeks. He was looking for something to hurt and Laura was as good a target as any.

He rounded the doorway into one of the cottage’s bedrooms, halting abruptly and having Sam nearly propel him into the room when his younger brother didn’t stop as fast. The sight before him almost caused Dean’s last meal to make a second appearance. Laura was squatted down on the bed beside Kyle Williams, a vicious-looking knife held upraised in her hand.

She looked up at Dean when the commotion of the brothers' entry interrupted her from her macabre task. He could see the bizarre mix of intricate, almost surgically precise incisions, along with more reckless, violent stab wounds.

It was those wounds that were the most brutal, the blade tearing through muscle and viscera on its destructive path in only to trail subcutaneous tissue on the way back out. The blood that was splattered on the walls and ceiling of the bedroom bore cruel testament to the amount of torture that had been inflicted on the young priest.

Laura growled at him like the animal Dean believed her to be. He responded by stepping further into the room and aiming the .45 directly at her head.

“Shoot me! Do it Dean,” she taunted, plunging the knife into the bearded priest before the hunter could even react.

“You bitch!” he shouted back, his finger tightening reflexively on the trigger but not pulling enough tension to fire the weapon.

“Help me, Dean,” Kyle begged weakly, his faced turned outward so that Dean couldn’t help but see the dark, pleading eyes or the thick line of blood that ebbed from the cleric’s mouth.

“Yes, Dean, help him. Save him. Can’t you do that?” Laura goaded him on, once again thrusting the blade deep within Kyle’s belly, splattering blood all over Dean as she withdrew it.

Kyle reacted with a hoarse groan, struggling weakly against the bonds that held him spread-eagled on the bed. His eyes rolled back in his head and Dean thought for sure that the holy man had taken his last breath.

“Dear God, please save me,” Kyle moaned faintly.

“Hold on, just hold on,” Dean implored.

“You can’t save him, Dean. You don’t even believe in the God he serves,” the demented blonde sneered at him.

“Back away from him now or I’ll fill you so full of lead that you’ll set off every metal detector within a hundred miles,” he answered, his finger tightening on the trigger even more.

Doit,doit,doit,doit,doit,doit… the dark voice inside Dean pushed at him.

Laura laughed at him and his index twitched. Except, nothing happened, the .45 didn’t fire. Dean tried to pull on the trigger once more, but this time even his finger wouldn’t move.

“What’s wrong, Dean? Can’t do it?”

He tried to switch the weapon to his other hand, but in that short instant, his hand was frozen, immoveable. As he stood there, surrounded by a hemorrhaging priest and a deranged young woman, Dean stood helplessly as a wave of ice rushed up his arms like an avalanche of snow.

“Dean! Do something. Help him,” Sam’s voice pleaded from behind him.

Cold, like he’d never been cold before in his life, Dean was frozen in place, every muscle unwilling to obey the commands that his brain sent to them. Freezing, but he couldn’t even shiver, the only things that still seemed moveable were his eyes.

He looked around the room again, looking at Kyle, looking for Sam and suddenly the view changed. Instead of the rustic interior of the cabin, he was looking out of a plexi-glass shroud.

In a panic, Dean felt his own breath reflected back in his face from the nearness of the inside of the Cryo-chamber. He was trapped inside, suddenly feeling like a giant human rat frozen inside of a test tube. The claustrophobia alone would have been enough to have set his nerves on edge, but the enveloping icy embrace, holding him immobile, was more than Dean could stand.

Outside the tube, Kyle was still lying there, still looking up to Dean with pleading brown eyes set within a bloodstained face. Dean could see him mouth the words “save me" even though the sounds couldn’t break through the thick metal chamber. Paralyzed, Dean was forced to watch as a maniacal Laura stabbed his friend over and over again.

He screamed out in a mixture of rage and fear, the sound of his own voice echoing within the chamber until his lungs threatened to seize up from the subzero mixture being pumped in around him. He squeezed his eyes shut, feeling eyelashes adhere to his cheeks as tear ducts crystallized.

And outside the chamber, Laura laughed, while Kyle died.

But this wasn’t real either; they saved Kyle from the cabin and he had never been trapped in one of those godforsaken cryo-chambers.

“Not real, not real, not real,” Dean repeated like a mantra, concerned more with convincing himself than whoever else, real or imagined, might also hear him.

“Oh, it’s very real, Dean,” Laura assured him. “You failed to save Kyle. Better luck next time.”

“Next time?” he questioned, eyes still crimped tightly closed.

When she didn’t reply, Dean chanced opening his eyes, blinded briefly by the glare of eight-thousand foot candles of surgical lighting. His body still not responding, he couldn’t lift a hand to shield his eyes, instead squinting until they adjusted.

When the new surroundings finally came into view, Dean could see Laura back before him. She was dressed in green surgical scrubs and standing beside a long metal table. Dean was mildly relieved when Kyle was absent from the table, but still more than morbidly curious when he saw the human-size form under a white sheet.

“You couldn’t save Kyle. Do you think you’ll have any better luck with Sam?” Laura hissed, throwing back the sheet.

Dean struggled to hold back the gasp that hung at the back of his throat. Underneath the pristine, white shroud lay his brother, rigid and unmoving, his eyes open but cast up toward the ceiling.

“Sammy!” Dean shouted, forcing his abused vocal cords to obey the thought and form the word.

“Save him, Dean. If you can!”

He fought to bring his hand up, still feeling the metal of the .45 in his palm, but unable to make use of the weapon. Dean’s eyes flashed over to the examiner’s table and to his brother. Like himself, he could see Sam’s eyes blink, but his brother had yet to move, and like himself, despite his paralysis, Sam was still able to speak.

“Dean, please help me,” he begged, soulful eyes seeking Dean’s hazel.

Laura raised her hand and a scalpel glinted in the bright lights of the morgue. While Dean watched helplessly, she began to carve on Sam’s chest, much in the same way that she had the priest’s.

Blood seeped from dozens of thin cuts, coating Sam’s upper body in a thick glaze of dark red. Sam groaned aloud but he never cried out, instead locking his eyes on Dean’s as he stared defiantly past Laura.

She never stopped her torturous procedure; not when the tears fell from Sam’s eyes, not when Dean threatened and then begged her, not even when the thin blade of the scalpel snapped off under Sam’s collarbone. She continued with the remnants of the instrument as Dean remained frozen, both figuratively and literally, in place.

“Stop, stop please! I’m begging you,” Dean pleaded. “I’ll do anything you want, just stop hurting him.”

Laura paused and for a moment Dean thought he saw a certain softness return to her eyes. She dropped the bloody piece of scalpel to the table with a metal clink and stepped off to the side.

Dean felt his shoulders sag with relief even though he was still locked in position. He cast an encouraging glance over to Sam, hoping it conveyed to his brother the assurance that he was going to get them out of this somehow.

“Hang in there, Sammy. I’ll make sure this bitch pays in full for everything she’s done,” Dean thought to himself.

“Now Dean, after I was nice enough to feel sorry for all that pitiful begging you were doing. You’re going to talk like that?”

“What? How… how did you know what I was thinking?” he asked in a panic.

“It’s your nightmare, Dean. I’m just playing by the rules you give me. Now what do you suppose I could do with this?” she asked, brandishing an electric bone saw.

Dean shuddered, the first response his muscles gave of their own accord, as she turned the device on. He screamed in horror as she brought it down on Sam’s chest, sending blood, skin and eventually bone spitting off in several directions.

Dean screamed out Sam’s name, much the same way he had before, squeezing his eyes shut and refusing to watch as Laura finished her version of an autopsy on his brother.

Strangely, when his voice gave out from screaming, he also noticed that the faint buzz of the bone saw was gone as well. Fearing the worst, Dean chanced opening his eyes, but the light that greeted the hazel this time was not the harsh glare of the surgical light but rather the reddish glow of the dying afternoon sun.

For a moment, he realized he was still caught in that interlude between dream and consciousness, when neither could be fully grasped. Dean sensed more than saw someone move nearby him and briefly hoped that it wasn’t Laura.

As his eyes focused slightly more, he saw that he was in a room. While it wasn’t the morgue, it didn’t look much more inviting. The walls were a nondescript gray and devoid of any real decoration.

Someone moved again in the room and Dean struggled to prop himself up and see who it was. The fact that he was lying flat did not go unnoticed, as did the returning smell of the bedding he was lying on. Although he was now certain that the recent memories of Laura were nothing more than a horrific nightmare, one thing seemed to have remained constant; his inability to fully move.

He fought against the physical restraint, the action only igniting a kaleidoscope of pain flashing throughout his right shoulder and into his chest. Dean stifled the groan that was a designer match to the pain and instead chose to focus more on using it to help clear his mind.

Pain? Shoulder? He remembered with a little more clarity now. He’d gotten hurt on a hunt and Sam had taken him to the local hospital to get his shoulder fixed. That explained it; the pain, the inability to move his arm, the drab room. Yet, it didn’t quite explain everything.

For instance, no hospital he’d ever been in had smelled this bad. And he was fairly certain that while he had hurt his right shoulder, there wasn’t any reason that his left shouldn’t be working. And what was with all that screaming and yelling now that he thought about it? Had they stuck him on the psych floor with all the crazies half out of their minds?

“Okay, time to go,” he thought to himself. “Sam?” he called out tentatively.

“Sammy?” Dean called again as the figure in the room moved closer to his bedside.

“How long I been out? What time is it? Dude, what the hell did they give me? I swear, I been dreaming shit that would make Wes Craven jealous,” he rambled.

“Go back to sleep, Dean!” the disembodied voice ordered.

“Dude, I’m not five. I don’t need a nap. Come on, man. Find my doc and get me out of here!” Dean whined, struggling harder to sit up.

As he edged up on his left shoulder, Dean could just make out the heavy white jacket that bound his arms to his chest.

“What the hell…”

The figure closed the distance, leaning down beside the head of Dean’s bed. At first, the hunter could make out blonde hair, a relatively tall build and the tell-tale white coat of a physician. But as the doctor bent nearer, Dean recoiled in fear as blue eyes suddenly gave way to ebony.

Dr. Kurt Vogler savored the fear that poured off the hunter, actually sniffed it off the air much like a hound catching a scent. He watched as the young man fought in vain to move himself away, legs pushing off from the foot of the bed.

“I wish I could tell you that you’re just wasting your energy struggling, Dean. But the truth is, I rather enjoy watching you struggle,” Vogler laughed.

“What the hell are you?” Dean snapped back. “What do you want?”

Vogler laughed again, deep in his throat, the sound having an edge that was purely demonic.

“Ah, Dean. I’m so disappointed. After everything I’d heard about hunters, I’d have thought you would have known exactly what I am.”

“Yeah, another demonic sonofabitch. Don’t you guys have anything better to do than come after us or is my family worth bonus points or something?”

Vogler shook his head, reaching out as he did to ruffle Dean’s short cropped hair like a small child.

“Now Dean, is that any way to speak to your doctor? You have so many deep-seated fears and family issues, I think we’re only just beginning to scratch the surface.”

“Yeah, well screw you, doc. You ain’t nothing more than some black-eyed bastard that I’m going to send packing straight back to hell,” Dean spat back.

“No, Dean. I’m so much more than some ordinary demon. Why, I’m your worst nightmares!”

* * * *

Sam reached York County Hospital in a squeal of tires, actually stopping the Impala a fraction of an inch from hitting a hospital security van. He jumped out, casting the guard an apologetic look and quickly muttered something about a wife being in labor.

The guard smiled knowingly and waved Sam on. The young man tore up the ramp to the ER entrance, for once glad that his long legs afforded him the ability to eat up ground. The automatic doors opened too slowly and Sam was forced to pause while they slid open.

Once inside, he retraced his way to the registration desk from the night before. An older woman sat behind the desk, oozing no-nonsense from the very set of her posture. Sam approached the counter, plastering the largest smile he could across his face.

“Excuse me,” he began. “I need the room number for Dean Hammett, please.”

The woman looked up at him, noting the shaggy, unwashed hair, the sweat-sheened face, and she raised an eyebrow skeptically. With a humph of air, she turned to the computer in front of her and began typing on the keyboard.

Sam continued to smile as he watched her tap on keys, her expression becoming even more serious.

“Sir, that patient was discharged from the ER earlier this morning,” she announced.

“Are you sure? Sam asked, leaning over the desk and straining to see the monitor. “I was told they were admitting him so that Dr. Blane could follow up today.”

The woman shot Sam an angry look, turning the screen so that Sam’s view was obscured.

“Sir, there is no further record of that patient. He was not admitted, he was discharged. Perhaps Dr. Blane was going to follow up with him in his offices.”

“No, I doubt that,” Sam replied. “Ma’am, look, this is my brother. I left him here this morning at five. He was supposed to be admitted and now he’s gone. He didn’t come back to the … well, he didn’t come home and he wasn’t exactly in any shape to have gone anywhere else. Is there any chance there could be some sort of computer mix-up?”

The woman’s scowl softened considerably as she saw the sincerity and concern in Sam’s face. She went back to the keyboard, typing again, but soon looked up shaking her head.

“I’m really sorry. I’ve tried everything I can think of and other than the record of the ER visit, there simply isn’t anything else about your brother in the system,” she said.

Sam nodded, the smile now gone from his face, replaced by the overwhelming feeling of dread. He thanked the woman, turning to lean against the counter as he looked up and down the hallways leading off from the central information desk. Part of him wanted to run through the hospital, screaming Dean’s name at the top of his lungs, but he knew that wasn’t an option.

Spotting the dark-haired Ebersol heading down the hallway, Sam pushed off the desk and chased after the resident. He caught the ER physician just as they entered the unit. Startled, the young doctor spun around defensively as Sam’s arm touched his shoulder.

“Oh, Mr. Hammett. What are you doing here?” he asked, spotting Sam.

“Looking for my brother. Where the hell did he go?” Sam demanded, feeling the muscles in his arm tense as his subconscious considered a more physical approach to getting answers.

Ebersol looked panicked, perhaps sensing that the disheveled young man standing so close to him was not one to be toyed with. Or, it could simply have been that the doctor noticed that Sam’s right fist was clenching open and closed repeatedly.

“Hey, hey now,” he fumbled, raising his hands defensively. “I tried to keep your brother here. Hell, I wanted to keep him locked up for his own good. But he signed himself out AMA before I could get him sent upstairs.”

Sam felt the pressure rise up in his chest, his head swimming from the implication of what Ebersol had said. He could feel the anger seething through him as he gripped the front of the resident’s scrubs.

“You bastard, you lying bastard. You said you just wanted to keep him for observation, not to lock him up in some looney bin!” Sam shouted. “You screw him up with all the medication, leave him barely conscious and I’m supposed to believe that he just got up and walked out of here?”

“I had our staff Psych evaluate your brother, I’m not an idiot.”

“Well that’s debatable …”

Ebersol glared at Sam’s interruption before he continued. “Dr. Vogler evaluated your brother, who was obviously alert and oriented for the interview, and said that he was perfectly stable. There was no reason to keep your brother here and Vogler said he was insisting on leaving. I couldn’t medically keep him here, so I signed off on the papers.”

Sam let go of the scrubs, taking a step away and relaxing slightly. He sucked in a deep breath, noting that Ebersol did likewise.

“Alright, where can I find this Dr. Vogler. I want to speak with him.” Sam demanded.

“He’s not on staff today, but stop at the desk and they can give you the number to his service. Look, I know you don’t believe this, but I really was just trying to do what was best for your brother,” Ebersol implored.

Sam tried to stifle his anger, but he simply nodded at the doctor and stalked off toward the desk. The nurse at the counter furnished him with the psychiatrist’s number, smiling at him more pleasantly than Sam had the desire to return. He stuffed the note into his pocket and turned to head for the exit, holding out some hope that Dean might be waiting at the motel when he returned.

He was nearly to the Impala when a soft touch on his right arm halted him. Sam turned to see a young woman in plain scrubs standing breathlessly behind him. She held a small envelope in her hand and pushed it out towards him now.

“Sorry,” she began, trying to catch her breath. “I saw you leaving the ER and I remembered you and your brother from last night.”

Sam shook his head, he was too tired to remember her face and her nametag was no additional help. The girl pushed the envelope forward more insistently, prodding Sam to take it from her hand.

“Your brother left this behind when he was discharged this morning. There wasn’t a contact number on his file, so I’m glad I saw you. I can’t imagine he’d want to lose that,” she explained.

Sam said his thanks and she trotted happily off, apparently content in having completed her mission. Turning back to the car, he sank into the driver’s seat and tore open the end of the sealed envelope.

Dumping out the contents, he felt panic rise up in his throat and the voice that had been silent began screaming once again as Dean’s silver ring fell into his hand. Sam remembered placing the ring in his brother’s hand before leaving the ER this morning. He knew there was no way that Dean would have ever voluntarily left the ring behind. Sitting in the Impala as the afternoon sun began to set, Sam’s heart sank in his chest.

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The Winchester Chronicles