Season Two

Episode Twenty: Unfinished

by Irismay42 & Thru Terry's Eyes

Part Two

Mansfield Public School
Present Day

Dean rolled the Impala into a parking space at the school and sat looking up at the refurbished brick building with distaste. To him it was just another school in a long line of schools he had never wasted brain space trying to remember.

Always being the new kid, always on the lookout, always the outsider. Not like Sam, who had tried to fit in at every school they had attended, with more or less success depending on the length of time they had remained. Being the youngest, the smartest, the geekiest, wearing his own labels of judgment just as Dean had.

Only Sam had earned his labels unwittingly, always trying to just be someone’s friend, one of the guys, whereas Dean had accepted his, worn them and grown used to them, reveling in being the perennial bad boy because it was a role he knew well and could play without effort. Sam had never given up trying to be like everyone else.

In the brief seconds before Sam opened the car door, Dean flashed through anger, frustration, humiliation, regret and that sinking feeling of knowing you’d done something wrong and it had come back to haunt you in the form of a dead librarian you’d never even met.

He ground his teeth together and pushed out of the car, going to stand by Sam who was regarding the building with the same uneasy gaze.

Around them other cars were pulling into and leaving the parking lot, people milling around the grounds and wandering in and out of the building in response, no doubt, to the School Open House signs posted about.

“It sure looks different,” Sam commented, brushing hair out of his eyes.

Dean stared at him then rolled his eyes. “C’mon, Gigantor,” he said, giving Sam a shove. “You can trip down memory lane later. Jeez, we were here for a few months, you act like it was something special.”

Sam obediently began walking, but grinned suddenly, “It was special, Dean. First time I ever punched a guy in the nose.”

Dean laughed abruptly. “My God, I forgot! You did! That guy’s eyes would have been purple for a month. If we’d stuck around that long to find out.” Dean chuckled as they mounted the steps. “He was a total jerk. What the hell was his name again?”

“Macklin,” Sam replied, “Jared Macklin.”

Dean grunted. “Hopefully, if he’s not working in a McDonald’s he’s in prison somewhere picking up soap for someone.”

He stopped and studied the various signs and displays. Teachers were acting as guides and information points. “Who’re we looking for again?” he asked, trying to make sense out of the You Are Here poster. The layout looked like a crazy house of circular hallways and bizarre angles. What the hell happened to straight halls? This one led to regular classes and that one led to the “Special Classes” where he had spent time at more than one school, not this arty architectural crap with flow.

“Helen Jensen, she’s the media coordinator. She was with Corrigan when he died.”

“The media what?”

“The librarian, Dean,” Sam replied with a sigh. He gestured at Dean to follow and went up to a thirty-something heavyset woman with a handful of leaflets and a harried expression. Her name tag read Camille Spencer, Mathematics Dept.

She brightened perceptibly at Sam’s approach. “Can I help you?”

Sam offered her a warm smile. “We’re looking for the media center and we’re having a little trouble following the directions on the sign.”

She laughed, “You mean the Mansfield Maze? I work here and I can’t find my way around. My guess is the kids will get lost for weeks before they ever find their classrooms. We’ll have to shoot off flares.”

Sam’s laugh this time was genuine. “It is kind of confusing.” Next to him Dean made an impatient sound and nudged him.

“Just follow the rainbow,” she said gesturing behind them.

“I’m sorry…?” Sam said, puzzled, glancing back at a series of colored stripes on the wall.

“Each color represents a different section. The third hallway down, they converge. That’s the library—I mean the media center—there are other teachers to help if you get lost. We should have had a check-in sheet for guests to make sure they all find their way out.” She leaned close and whispered, “I have it on good authority that at the center of the building, if you can find it, there’s a minotaur. Or a pot of gold.” She clasped Sam’s hand and laughed merrily.

It had obviously been a long day already.

“Thanks,” Sam said, catching Dean’s arm and pulling him along to get his attention away from the group of high school girls who had just giggled their way in.

Dean actually stumbled as Sam yanked him along, his eyes still trailing on long legs and short skirts. “Hey!”

“Jailbait, Dean. Don’t look at ’em.” Sam growled, dragging them down the indicated hall. “We’re working.”

“I was working!” Dean protested. “They might be potential witnesses.” He jerked his arm free and made a fuss over smoothing his sleeve.

“The only thing those girls are potential witnesses for is a shoe sale at the mall.”

Sam made a left, a right, watching the colored lines and then Dean was sure they doubled back at least twice before a pair of glass double doors presented themselves with “Corrigan Media Center” painted on them. On an easel to one side was a large photo of Dale Corrigan with a black ribbon draped over it and a small sign that read: In memory of Dale Corrigan, without whose generous donation this facility would not exist. 1977-2008.

Dean stopped dead. “Now I remember that son of a bitch!” he exclaimed.

Sam hit him. “Dean! Be quiet for God’s sake,” he hissed, as the people passing by turned to stare.

Dean gave him a dirty look. “Well, I do!” he shoved the doors open and went in.

This time Sam stopped dead, staring around at the brightly lit, expansive room, filled with banks of computers and shelves of new books. The smell of new was overwhelming. Large desks with comfortable-looking chairs filled the empty areas and the entire room was so up to date and modern-looking that Sam was momentarily stunned. He could still remember the dark, dusty room with the messy stacks of books and towering shelves.

“Wow,” he intoned.

Dean looked around blankly, then shook his head, allowing Sam his moment of awe. A large round desk was centered in the room and a young woman with dark hair pulled back into a bun was industriously stamping inside book covers.

“Hey, c’mon!” Dean said, flicking Sam with his fingers, “I bet that’s her.”

Sam followed, still admiring, letting his fingers trail over the desks as he walked by, a brief, sharp pang for what he had at Stanford hit him but was immediately buried under what he had lost there and he put it out of his mind in a rush, joining Dean at the desk.

The woman looked up with a subdued smile. “Can I help you, gentlemen?”

Dean smiled broadly as he took in her lovely features, the soft mouth, pointed nose and sad brown eyes. She should wear her hair down, he thought.

“Actually we’re sort of looking around,” he replied. “Checking out the school for our sister, she’s moving here in a few weeks and her kid’ll be going here. We heard the library was something else.” He turned, gesturing, “They weren’t kidding.”

“Yes, it’s quite impressive, isn’t it?” Her smile warmed slightly as she looked at the brothers, enjoying the taller one’s obvious amazement.

Dean held out his hand, “I’m Dean Winters, this is my brother Sam.” He smacked Sam in the chest with the back of his hand, bringing him back to earth.

She extended a slender hand and allowed Dean to shake it, then to Sam whose huge hand engulfed hers. “Helen Jensen. I’m the media coordinator—” She rolled her eyes. “God, that sounds so pretentious. I’m the new librarian.”

“This is beautiful,” Sam said with total honesty. “It was nothing like this when we went here.”

Helen’s interest took a noticeable jump. “You went to school here? Then you knew Mr. Withers, the old librarian?”

Sam and Dean looked at each other.

“Uh, no actually, we only went for part of a semester and he died about a month before we started.” Dean replied, watching Helen’s face as disappointment washed over it. “I’m sorry, did I say something wrong?”

“What? Oh, no…I just…I can’t find anyone who has anything positive to say about the man. I mean, he may have been a little hidebound but he stood up for what he believed in and I admire that.” She suddenly reached up and wiped at her eyes. “I’m sorry. With everything that’s happened, poor Mr. Corrigan…”

Sam kicked Dean in the ankle at Dean’s sudden noise of disgust. “Yeah, we heard about that. That must have been awful for you.” His voice took on the deep tones of compassion that never failed to have people spilling their guts to him.

She nodded, wiping at another errant tear that spilled down her cheek. “I can’t help but feel responsible somehow. I mean, I know it wasn’t my fault, how could it be? But still, he was there opening that crate because I asked him to help me.” She shook her head. “He got this big splinter in his hand when the crate broke open and I just went to get the first aid kit and when I came back…”

To Sam’s horror she burst into full-blown tears and covered her face with her hands.

Dean looked around to make sure they were unobserved: reducing the librarian to tears would definitely not win them friends.

“I’m sorry,” she sniveled, grasping a Kleenex from the box Sam pushed at her. “You didn’t come here to hear all this. It’s just been so hard. I’ve had nightmares every night since it happened. The way he died—how could that happen?” She raised swimming eyes at Sam.

“No, it’s okay. We understand,” he said, sympathetically.

“What was in this crate if you don’t mind me asking?” Dean chimed in.

Helen shrugged. “All the old books from the original library were crated up and I’ve been going through them, sorting them. This box was from Mr. Withers’ private collection, I guess.” She sniffed and dabbed at her eyes. “I left the party for the opening and came here to do some work. I guess Mr. Corrigan was wandering around. He came here and we were talking about Mr. Withers and I mentioned the crate. I couldn’t get it open and asked Mr. Corrigan to help me with it…” She dissolved into tears again to Dean’s chagrin.

“What kind of books were they?” he asked, trying to distract her.

“I don’t know, I haven’t really looked at them since that night.” She straightened, pulling herself together. “Why?”

Dean blinked, “Oh, no reason really. I remember hearing about these crazy books he had on…some stuff….I just wondered if they were for sale…” He floundered, prevaricating wildly with no help from Sam. “They might be valuable, you could sell ’em…or something.”

“Oh. Well a lot of them are valuable but so many of them are in bad condition all you can do is destroy them. I’ll have a look at them later and be able to tell more.”

“Do you want some help? We have some time if you need some stuff carried or… whatever…” Dean glanced at Sam who instantly nodded.

Helen looked doubtful. “Really, that’s very nice of you but I just don’t think I can go through them right—”

She broke off, looking up as a heavyset man suddenly pushed through the door calling her name loudly. Helen wiped the look of distaste off her face as the shorts-clad individual spotted her, Dean and Sam and strode up to the table.

He wore a ball cap and a whistle, sneakers and a yellow polo shirt with Mansfield Athletic Department embroidered over the chest. He looked to be about their age but time was not being kind to him. The promising beginnings of a beer gut pulled the fabric over his belly and while he retained a still-handsome face, lines and sags of flesh were gradually giving in to gravity.

Dean and Sam stepped forward as he approached, almost protectively.

He came to a halt, looking them both over. Sam towered over him by about seven inches and he was just below Dean’s eye level. He took in Helen’s reddened eyes and the wadded tissues but made no comment: whatever was bugging her he knew he wasn’t responsible for it so it didn’t matter.

“I came by to see if you were ready to go to lunch?” he said, speaking around the guys as if they weren’t there.

“I told you, Mr. Macklin, I have too much to do to go to lunch with you. Someone has to be here to talk to the students and parents when they come through.”

Macklin looked around the otherwise empty room. “Doesn’t look like you’re too overrun.”

“Still—”

Macklin looked over at Sam and Dean who had stiffened at hearing his name. He stuck out his hand. “Coach Jared Macklin, head of the athletic department.” He eyed the boys speculatively. “You have kids going here? You look familiar.”

Dean stepped forward, a glint in his eye, and held out his hand. “Dean Winters, my brother Sam,” indicating said brother who made no effort to shake hands. “We’re checking out the school for our sister. Wanted to see the library we’ve been hearing so much about.”

Macklin snorted. “No offense,” he said, nodding at Helen. “But you ask me, these kids would get more out of running laps and sweating it out on a football field than they’ll ever get out of a bunch of pansy-ass books. Real life is a battle, and they need to learn how to fight it.” He grinned, a man with a simple life philosophy and proud to share.

Helen’s own tight smile would have cut glass. “You are, of course, entitled to your opinion.”

Macklin snapped his fingers. “I remember now! When I was a sophomore there was this psycho kid with a geeky little brother that went here for a little while. Their names were Sam and Dean. The older kid, Dean, was some kind of juvenile offender, so I heard. Dad was in prison off and on and the younger one was just strange. Crazy stuff happened around him all the time. We were in the library one time having some fun with him and all these books started flying off the shelves. Crazy as hell. Little shit punched me in the nose once and then his brother attacked me later. Let’s see, their last name was…Wind…Winchell…Winchester!!! That’s it! We called ’em Weirdchester! Talk about a pair of oddballs.” He laughed, slapping his leg, recalling the fun of younger days.

Sam heard Dean suck in a breath and immediately insinuated himself between Dean and Macklin.

“So what do you guys do for a living?” Macklin asked.

Dean pushed ineffectually at Sam. “We’re exterminators,” he replied, giving Sam a hip shove that moved him clumsily to one side. “We get rid of annoying pests.”

Macklin laughed again. “Well, someone has to do those jobs. Can’t all be college men. You sure about lunch?” he asked, directing his attention back to Helen.

Dean felt Sam grab his arm to stop his forward progress, fists balling at his sides.

“Maybe another time, Mr. Macklin.”

He shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He glanced back at Sam and Dean and flipped them a salute. “Happy hunting.” He turned and left, whistling.

“Asshole,” Dean spat after him.

“That’s for sure,” Helen agreed, startling both men, who turned to stare at her. She blushed. “It’s no sin to state a fact. I’m sorry, he’s a real jerk. I heard he was a jerk when he went to school here and turned it into a profession.” She shuffled some of the books on the desk. “I’m really sorry, but I do have a lot to do, if there are any questions about the library you want to ask…?”

Sam shook his head. “No, I think we found out everything we need to know. I hope we didn’t upset you too much.”

“No, it’s just gonna take some time to get over. I hope your sister’s kids like going to school here.” She smiled and passed over some brochures. “Give her these to read, it covers all the rules and information about the center.” She glanced up as a couple with two children in tow came through the door. “If you’ll excuse me,” she said with a smile. “It was nice to meet you.”

As they walked back down the steps Sam was making plans in his head about returning to check out the crate of books after the building closed while Dean fumed about Macklin, his forgotten anger over long ago injustices back full force as the former bully had laid it all out again to see and relive.

“Let it go, Dean, it was a long time ago. We were kids.”

“Let it go, hell,” Dean snarled. “That jack son of a bitch made our lives miserable. If anyone oughta have their ass kicked by that crazy librarian it’s him.”

They reached the Impala and climbed in, tearing off with the throaty grumble of the engine not quite drowning out Dean’s continued ranting about the unfairness of life while Sam kept repeating to forget it.

Mansfield Public School
May 1993

Usually, it was the worst sound in the world.

Sam hated it with a passion and had begun to think of it as a death knell. The bell tolls for thee, Samuel Winchester! Leave this place of normality and return post haste to that dark world inhabited by others of your kind. Return not again until 8 a.m. sharp upon the morrow…

But today, the end of school bell couldn’t ring fast enough.

Sam didn’t ever remember being this jazzed about a potential hunt. Not ever. But this wasn’t the usual “stay in the car with the books and keep the doors locked until we get back, Sammy” hunt. This was different. This was [i]his[/i] hunt. Well, his and Dean’s anyway. And as for Dean being pissed off about only being allowed on the penny ante hunts – well at least he was allowed on those, not left in the car like the family dog!

If Dean had something to prove then Sam had double. But he’d show Dean. And Dad. Carlyle Withers didn’t know what was about to hit his moldy old bones: The Winchester boys, hunting solo!

Sam had it all laid out in his head like one of Dean’s comic books: find the grave, dig the old geezer up, salt, lighter fluid, matches. Problem solved. No more haunted library.

What would Dad say to that, huh?

It had been all Dean could do to persuade Sam to wait an extra night while they did a little research. Be Prepared. Well who was the Boy Scout now, Dean?

Finally, finally the bell rang, and Sam was up from his desk so fast he never even heard Miss Cohen dole out their homework assignment – five hundred words on How the Railroads Conquered America – so intent was he on finding Dean and imparting his “research.”

In fact, he was so distracted that he never even noticed Jared Macklin blocking his path as he jumped down the school’s front steps three at a time until he was almost standing on the bigger kid’s two hundred dollar sneakers.

“Weirdchester.”

The jock’s nose was swathed in bandages, dark purple smudges lurking beneath his piggy eyes, hands curled into fists of fury at his sides as he gritted his teeth and fairly snarled down at the younger boy.

Sam stopped dead in his tracks before instinctively backing up a few paces, all thoughts of the ghost of Carlyle Withers driven from his mind as Macklin began to advance on him very, very slowly, his two henchmen bringing up the rear like a testosterone-fueled rolling roadblock.

“You broke my nose, Weirdchester,” Macklin growled nasally, only four feet away and closing. “So now I’m gonna see how easy it is to break an egghead’s head, egghead –”

“Need the bathroom, Macklin? ’Cause I swear you just used the word ‘head’ three times in that sentence.”

Sam wasn’t entirely sure how Dean had magically materialized in the space between himself and Macklin, but it was at times like these that Sam could vividly imagine his big brother standing with his hands on his hips and a cape billowing behind him softly in the breeze.

Except there was no cape and no breeze and Dean would kick his ass from here to Outer Mongolia if he even dared to mention him in the same breath as “tights.”

Macklin’s forward momentum halted immediately, bright red cheeks blanching slightly as he too wondered where the hell Dean had come from.

If Dean had a superpower, then this was it.

Sam knew Dean referred to it as his “Sammy Sense” and he’d seen it in action too many times to doubt its existence.

“Uh – I was – I wanted to talk to your brother,” Macklin mumbled barely coherently, eyes suddenly averted to his expensive footwear.

“Yeah, he’s a popular kid,” Dean said, smiling brightly and not moving one iota.

A weird nasal snort emanated from Macklin’s bandages, and it was as if he suddenly realized that his reputation may not be the size of Dean Winchester’s, but his body exceeded his by seven inches and about forty pounds. Shoulders straightening, he stepped forward, inclining his head down until what was left of his nose was a fraction of an inch from Dean’s.

Dean didn’t even flinch.

“Something I can help you with, Sneezy?” Dean asked calmly. “Or is it Dopey? Always get those two mixed up.”

Macklin positively snarled at him, giving him the appearance of a very hungry pot-bellied pig. “Get outta my way, Weirdchester –”

Dean sighed melodramatically. “Jeez, is that the best you can come up with, Jaclyn? ’Cause honestly, I never heard that one before.”

If Macklin was intimidating before, now he was positively looming. “What if I break your nose, huh pretty boy? You gonna go running home to Mommy–?”

Dean’s jaw tensed and his eyes narrowed, a little muscle beginning to bounce in his cheek.

“Oh, wait,” Macklin continued, getting even more in Dean’s face. “You don’t have a mommy, do you? Not much of a daddy either from what I hear –”

Macklin’s head made an interestingly hollow thud as it hit the sidewalk, Sam noted, Dean stepping forward to stand over him, casually admiring the pattern the blood oozing from his split lip was creating on his brand new Cleveland Indians shirt.

“Aw, I’m sorry,” Dean drawled insincerely. “These sidewalks can be pretty treacherous, can’t they?” He leaned down towards Macklin, who was blinking up at him stupidly. “I’d stay down there if I were you, Jaclyn,” he advised, voice lowered. “I’d hate to see you have another sidewalk-related accident if you even think about getting within six feet of my little brother again.” He straightened, first assessing any danger Macklin’s quite frankly totally unimposing henchmen might pose to himself or his brother, before turning back to Sam and casually asking, “You comin’ or are we waiting for the encore?”

Yeah, so there were some days Sam didn’t feel even slightly embarrassed to be Dean Winchester’s kid brother.

“I’m coming,” he agreed readily, for once not in the slightest bit pissed off at his brother for babying him, stealing his thunder or a combination of both, grinning from ear to ear at the assembled throng of students all gazing at his big brother with a mixture of awe, gratitude, and in some cases, barely disguised adoration.

“That was awesome!” he declared after they’d stepped over Macklin’s bloody face and were well out of earshot of the admiring onlookers.

“Well one of us has got to be,” Dean chided him lightly as they headed in the general direction of the latest scuzzy motel they called “home.” “What were you thinking letting Macklin sneak up on you like that?”

“He didn’t exactly ‘sneak,’ Dean,” Sam protested. “I was just kinda – preoccupied is all.”

“’Cause that never usually happens –”

“Thinking about Carlyle Withers and how we’re gonna torch him later!”

Dean raised an eyebrow, noting how Sam was virtually bouncing along at his side. “You, distracted from school by a hunt?” he burst out. “Jeez, Sam, if I’d known this was all it took to get your head into the family business I’d have had you digging up moldy librarians years ago!”

Sam stuck out his bottom lip sullenly. “This is different,” he insisted. “This is personal. This is our school – people we know could get hurt, not just random strangers –”

“Like the ‘random strangers’ Dad usually puts his ass on the line to save, you mean?”

Sam cast a sidelong glance in his brother’s direction, but didn’t comment.

“Anyway,” Dean continued, deftly altering the direction of the conversation. “You’re right about one thing: People we know are getting hurt.”

Sam stopped bouncing for a second. “They are?”

“Remember Summer Soames?”

“That airhead cheerleader who you said had fake –”

“Yeah, she’s the one,” Dean confirmed. “Well get this, apparently she got busted putting her girly scrawl all over one of the library’s oh-so-exciting Roman history books – she likes to draw these really sickening love hearts over all the ‘i’s in place of the dots, right –”

“So that’s who wrote ‘Dean Winchester, I love you’ all over your Math textbook?”

“Shut up, Sherlock,” Dean muttered, before continuing as if Sam hadn’t even spoken. “So Mr. Roper hands her a bill to take home to her parents right, to pay for the book she’s messed up, and he gives her a detention on top of that, but just as she’s leaving the library a whole bookshelf just tips over on top of her, snapping her leg like a stale Twinkie!”

Sam’s eyes widened. “Guess she won’t be cheerleading for a while then.”

Dean shrugged. “She’d have been okay if the thing had fallen on her chest – would have bounced right off of all that silicone…”

Sam’s face screwed up in disgust. “Can we say ‘ew?’ Dean, you are way too obsessed by that girl’s –”

“Rack?”

“You shouldn’t use that word,” Sam chided him. “It’s degrading to women.”

“Who died and made you Eleanor Roosevelt?”

Sam performed his patented long-suffering little brother eye roll before continuing. “You know, you’re not fooling anyone with this ‘I only pay attention to hot teachers’ routine –”

“Miss Reynolds was hot –”

“She was Geography, not History, Dean. You had Mr. O’Rourke for that class.”

Dean frowned. “Huh.”

Sam rolled his eyes again, this time adding the long-suffering little brother sigh for good measure. “Listen, I have intel too,” he said excitedly. “Last night, one of the janitors – Mr. Rehman? He drew the short straw when the cleaning staff decided it was time to reclaim Mr. Withers’ office. So, he’s standing on Mr. Withers’ desk, right, trying to clean the strip light above it when he accidentally kicked over his bucket of soapy water and –”

“Kicked the bucket,” Dean sniggered, before sobering almost immediately and adding, “Uh, he didn’t, did he? Kick the bucket?”

Sam shook his head. “No, but Mr. Withers’ books and papers – the things he had out on his desk when he died – they were all ruined, soaked through. And then all of a sudden the strip light kind of explodes – glass and bits of plastic everywhere, most of it seeming to make a beeline for Mr. Rehman’s face. He got rushed to hospital to get himself stitched up, but I heard he might lose an eye!”

Dean considered Sam’s little narration as he fished in his pocked for the room key while they crossed the Motel Paradiso’s half-empty parking lot. “That’s one seriously pissed off librarian,” he commented finally, producing the key and shoving it into the lock of room thirteen. “Who knew bookworms could get so worked up, huh? I better keep a closer eye on you, squirt!” Sam scowled at him as he shoved a hand under the door handle, ramming it upward as he rattled the key until the lock eventually ground open and he was able to shoulder the door in on the second attempt.

“You’re getting better at that,” Sam observed casually, following Dean into the musty-smelling room and dumping his bookbag onto the nearest bed.

“Yeah well, by the sounds of things, so is Carlyle Withers.”

“So we’re agreed?” Sam pushed eagerly. “He’s the spook responsible for what’s going on in the library?”

Dean raised an eyebrow and made his customary “I can’t believe we’re related” face. “Yeah, we’re agreed, Rupert,” he said, sarcastically mimicking Sam’s inflection. “The ex-librarian’s stamped his last book as far as I’m concerned.”

Sam grinned broadly, producing a map from his back pocket and flattening it out on the bed before pointing at a large red “X.” “And I know just where to find him.”

Mansfield Memorial Park
May 1993
1.00 a.m.

“This one,” Sam stated confidently, pointing at a non-descript granite headstone that listed slightly to the left, the bright moonlight clearly illuminating the name “Carlyle Withers” despite the rest of the inscription being obscured by several clumps of overgrown grass and wildly-growing weeds, the grave clearly not having been well-tended in the months since the old librarian’s demise.

Dean shifted the shovel from off his shoulder, taking a breath as if he were savoring the moment, before plunging the blade into the uneven turf. “First solo salt n’ burn, Sammy,” he observed with a grin. “Maybe we ought to start our own hunter’s journal from now on, huh?”

Dean’s enthusiasm was infectious, and Sam found himself bringing his own shovel down into the hard earth, excited breaths misting the air in front of his mouth giving him the appearance of a serial chain-smoker. “Can’t wait to tell Dad!” he said. “We took down a dangerous spirit all by ourselves!”

A little smile of anticipation lit up Dean’s face. “So much for ‘you’re too young for the big hunts, kiddo’!” he said, affecting his father’s smooth baritone. “Maybe he might actually let us hunt something interesting with him when he’s sees we’re up to it!”

“No more waiting in the car for us, huh?” Sam offered hopefully, and Dean glanced up at him from the small hole he’d already made in the dirt, face for a second unreadable in the bright moonlight.

“You, me and Dad,” he said eventually. “Nothin’s gonna be able to stand up to us! Nothin’, Sammy.”

Dean’s conviction and Sam’s excitement saw them both through two hours’ solid digging, but after realizing he had blisters on his hands and they were still only three feet closer to Carlyle Withers’ casket, Sam’s enthusiasm eventually began to wane.

“Dean, I need a break,” the younger boy declared finally, heaving himself up onto the edge of the uneven hole they’d so far excavated, feet dangling below as he flung his shovel behind him onto the damp grass and began to examine the mess he’d already made of his hands.

Dean glanced up briefly but carried on digging, t-shirt soaked through with sweat despite his outer clothing having been discarded an hour earlier. “Lightweight,” he commented through gritted teeth, readjusting his grip on his shovel in order, Sam was pretty sure, to disguise the discomfort his own blisters were causing him.

“How does Dad make this look so easy?” Sam wondered, rolling his aching shoulders.

“The man’s a walking earthmover, Sammy,” Dean explained, himself pausing for a second to look up at his brother. “C’mon, squirt. This grave ain’t gonna dig itself and it’ll be starting to get light in a few hours.”

Sam screwed up his face, exaggerating his fatigue in the hope of garnering some sympathy from his brother. “I can’t dig anymore, Dean!” he whined, doing his best to play on Dean’s finely-honed Big Brother Protection Instinct. “Can I just take a little break?” He knew it was a low blow, but he blinked the puppy dog eyes plaintively. “Please?”

From the expression on Dean’s face, Sam was pretty sure his big brother knew full well he was being played, but that didn’t stop him caving with minimal resistance. “Five minutes,” he pronounced. “And don’t you go wandering off. You don’t wanna wind up locked in a crypt all night or something, do ya?”

Sam shook his head vigorously, for a second vividly reminded of the time that very thing had happened, he and Dean finding themselves shut inside a creepy crypt for several hours until Dad finally realized they weren’t where he’d left them and went looking for them. Although Sam was pretty sure Dad had left them locked in there a while just to teach them not to go poking their noses in where they didn’t belong.

Pulling himself up onto his feet, he felt a slight twinge of guilt when he caught Dean wince as he resumed digging, but managed to put it out of his head as he turned to examine the tumbledown array of gravestones stretching out all around him, each one looking slightly less cared for than the last. “Emilia Jane Withers. Beloved mother.” “Harriman William Withers. Rest in peace.” “Constance Harriman-Withers. Sleeping with the angels.”

Sam frowned slightly as each inscription he read revealed another deceased member of the Withers family. That wasn’t entirely unusual – this was obviously the family plot. But what did concern him, however, was the slightly crumbling marble cross clearly marking the grave of one Carlyle Withers…

Sam did a double-take, glancing back over his shoulder at Dean, still diligently excavating the first grave they’d found attributed to Carlyle Withers. He shook his head uncertainly, biting his lip as he considered calling out to his brother, but deciding against it and instead kneeling down in front of the crucifix and gingerly pushing away several years’ worth of accumulated weeds and undergrowth to reveal the rest of the inscription: “Carlyle Withers II. Faithful son, beloved father.”

Oh crap.

There was more than one Carlyle Withers…

Fairly jumping to his feet, Sam spun on his heel and made to sprint back towards his brother, but instead suddenly found himself sprawled headlong in the overgrown grass, his foot caught in a tangle of weeds and brambles that seemed intent on pulling the tombstone of Carlyle Withers II into the earth along with its namesake’s yellowing bones.

Cursing silently to himself as he extricated his foot from the weeds and raised himself up onto his knees, Sam’s stomach almost slid right down into his sneakers when his eyes lit on the fairly recent marble slab now right in front of him: “Carlyle Withers III, 19th July 1929 – 1st March 1993. Let knowledge be your guide.”

Crap.

Double crap.

“Dean?”

Sam backed away from the headstone very slowly, eyes still riveted to the glaring inscription, insensible to the dewy wetness soaking through the knees of his jeans or the suddenly freezing air causing his teeth to chatter loudly.

“D – Dean?”

He turned, at first stumbling hesitantly back toward his brother until the true gravity of the situation finally hit him and he found himself sprinting over to the open grave where Dean’s head and shoulders were barely visible, skidding to a halt in the piled up dirt and fairly screaming, “Dean!” at the top of his lungs.

“What?” Dean snapped, straightening, exasperation plain in the impatience of his tone. “I heard you the first time, Sammy!

“D – Dean –” Sam stammered awkwardly. “I – er – think we might have a problem…”

“Damn right we got a problem!” Dean concurred testily. “This whole salt n’ burn was your idea, Sam, yet I seem to be the only one doing the digging! Break’s over, Samantha! Get your ass down here and help me!”

Sam took a breath, steeling himself for the inevitable explosion. “Dean – I – I think maybe – maybe you should stop digging –”

“What?” Dean stared at him incredulously. “Are you mental? I got two feet to go and three hours to sun-up. No way in hell I’m giving up now!”

“Dean,” Sam swallowed. “I think we’re digging up the wrong grave.”

Dean stopped dead, just looking at him, expression completely blank. “We’re what?” he managed to choke out finally.

“I – I think we’re digging up the wrong Carlyle Withers.”

“Sam,” Dean was clearly losing his patience. “I distinctly remember you pointing to this grave and saying ‘This one.’ You’re telling me what now? Your map reading skills aren’t quite as good as you originally lead me to believe, huh Mr. Columbus?”

Sam looked down at his feet and scuffed his shoe in the dirt. “There’s more than one Carlyle Withers,” he mumbled sheepishly.

“How that hell is that possible?” Dean demanded. “And if you tell me the guy cloned himself I might have to hit you with this shovel.”

Sam reached down and tore away some of the undergrowth creeping up the tombstone. He swallowed again. Hard. “Because this Carlyle Withers died in 1937,” he said quietly.

Had Dean not been dirty, sweaty and half dead on his feet, his reaction, Sam mused, could have been much, much worse.

“We’re digging up the librarian’s dad?” he asked, ominously calm.

Sam shrugged apologetically. “Granddad I think. There are three of them.” He waited patiently while Dean digested that bit of information.

“Sam,” the older boy said very slowly through gritted teeth. “We have to be at school in, like, five hours. The sun’s gonna be up in three. And now you’re telling me for the last couple of hours I’ve been wrecking my hands digging up the wrong corpse?”

Sam nodded mutely.

Dean took a breath, glancing about himself helplessly, raking a mud-encrusted hand through his sweaty hair before rounding on his brother. “Help me fill this back in,” he ordered, voice steely, sounding so much like Dad right then Sam actually shuddered in the chilly early morning air.

He nodded silently again, immediately picking up his discarded shovel as Dean hauled himself up out of the hole, deliberately not looking at his little brother, jaw so tense Sam was pretty sure he could have taken a right hook from Mike Tyson right then and never felt a thing.

They worked in complete silence for several minutes, Sam’s eyes occasionally flicking to his brother, whose ears had turned an odd shade of scarlet.

“You can yell at me if you want to,” Sam offered eventually. “If it’d make you feel better.”

Dean sighed, for a moment just leaning on his shovel and looking appraisingly at Sam. “Like that ever works when Dad tries it,” he said with a soft chuckle. Finally, he added, “Sam, it’s not like you did this on purpose. Contrary to popular belief I do actually have a mind of my own, you know. I shoulda checked the date on the tombstone. ’S my fault as much as yours.”

Sam glanced up at him through lowered eyelashes. “Really?” he asked hesitantly. “You’re not mad?”

Dean shrugged. “Sure I’m mad,” he admitted. “But not at you. We got over-confident and sloppy. We were stupid and in too much of a hurry to prove ourselves to Dad and we wound up wasting a night. But it won’t happen again. Because we’re coming back tomorrow night to finish the job. Right?”

It wasn’t really a question.

Sam nodded eagerly. “Right. We’ll get it right tomorrow.”

“You bet your ass we will. Winchesters don’t leave a job unfinished, right? Not ever.” Dean reached out a sore hand and nudged Sam lightly on the chin. “Now help me fill in this grave. We don’t want some nosy gravedigger getting all suspicious and thinking someone’s digging up his stiffs before we’ve had time to dig up the right stiff, now do we?”

Sam shook his head, ignoring his blisters as he resumed shoveling dirt back into the grave. “We’ll get it right tomorrow,” he repeated under his breath. “Because Winchesters don’t leave a job unfinished…”

Mansfield Public School
Coach’s Office
Present Day

One of the perks of being head of the athletic department was having access to the school after hours. Having nothing waiting for him at home but a refrigerator full of beer and a decent porn collection, Jared Macklin tended to linger in his office or return there for quality time. Tonight, quality time was going to be a quick swim in the school’s new pool, work on the team schedules and then back home to take advantage of both the beer and the plain wrapper DVDs.

Dressed in gray trunks, towel draped around his neck, he paused as he passed his Wall of Fame on the way out through the glass doors that faced the calm shimmer of the water in the pool.

Crammed with trophies and awards from his high school and college days, he liked to stand and study them, not unhappy with where he was but still enjoying the thought of where he might have been.

He enjoyed showing off his glory days. On prominent display was his college diploma, always bringing a smile to his lips as he recalled how the coaches and alumni had forced the issue of passing him from one grade to the next despite his limp academic performance so that they didn’t lose him as the most valuable player on the team. Passing him had meant winning games and a winning team, and winning teams meant generous alumni donations. It had been a win-win situation.

God bless the American way.

His first summer after college, a badly torn ligament in his knee had put an end to his dreams of gridiron glory and he had been forced to seek alternative means of providing for himself.

Mansfield had opened its arms to him, welcoming back their high school champion, knowing his presence would add appeal to their efforts at attracting new residents to the town as an attractive suburb of the larger cities around them.

He enjoyed taking the losers, geeks and wimps he saw coming through the classes and running them through their paces, seeing them sweat and strain and agonize because he told them to do so.

Surprisingly, despite his scoffing at books as a useful learning tool, the remaining shelves were crammed with dozens of them. He had never actually read any of them, didn’t even really know what they were. They were as untouched, pristine and virginal as they had been when he had purchased them from the bookstore five years ago, going straight to the shelves from their boxes. People entering his office were impressed by them, and so they served a purpose.

He jerked in surprise as a book suddenly fell from the shelf and thudded to the floor.

Grunting he reached down and retrieved it, shoving it back in its slot.

Three more books tumbled to the floor.

Frowning, he moved close to the shelf and peered into the empty spots to see if there was a mouse or something.

A book slammed into the back of his head.

“What the hell?” he yelped, rubbing where the book had struck, turning to see if someone was behind him.

More books slammed into him from behind, piling around him on the floor.

Heart suddenly thudding, he gaped in disbelief as yet more books spilled from the shelves, their covers bursting open and the pages exploding from them and flying into the air.

“Oh, my God!” he cried as a wind began to move the air, faster and faster, the stiff, unused pages beginning to spin around him with a sound like an angry hive of bees.

Hundreds of papers whipped around him in a miniature tornado, pushing at him. He threw out his hands to protect his face but jerked them back slashed and bloody as the sharp edges of the stiff pages sliced into his skin, crying out.

The pressure became too much to keep his feet as the funnel of papers whistled and screamed around him, forcing him back. Still trying to fend off the incomprehensible, he stumbled away, hitting the glass doors that led to the pool with a mighty crash, sending shards of the tempered glass everywhere. An alarm began to scream adding to the din. The jagged bits of glass tore into his flesh, sucked up by and joining the column that spun around him as he landed on his side, curling into a ball to try to keep the razors of paper and glass from continuing to bite into him.

The sheer power of the wind forced him to his feet and he staggered across the concrete leaving a bloody trail in his wake, sobbing and screaming as now slices and chunks of flesh were ripped from his body sending blood splattering that became part of the whirling tower that surrounded him.

At the edge of the pool he fell to his hands and knees, red handprints marking his path as he began to crawl, his screams becoming inarticulate gasps and grunts. He tumbled into the water and vanished beneath the surface, tendrils of red drifting slowly upwards.

The spinning tower at the edge of the pool paused there for a few seconds and then shot into the water, winding itself around Macklin’s thrashing body like a bizarre snake.

The water began to bubble and boil, rolling waves of ever-reddening water churning the surface. After a moment the water stilled and within seconds assumed the aspect of an unbroken sheet of scarlet glass.

Here and there, sheets of paper began to float upwards, slowly covering the water.

Jared Macklin’s shredded body bobbed languidly to the surface after a bit, rolling lazily like a log until his glassy eyes stared up through the skylight and into the starlit sky beyond, arm outstretched, legs dangling limply into the depths. Floating gently, like a cork.

The alarm continued to shriek from the building, echoing now to the sound of sirens in the distance.

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The Winchester Chronicles