I shouldn’t have told Dean anything; now he was all worried about me. Not that he’d ever say it, but I could tell by the way he kept looking at me, stealing glances when he didn’t think I’d notice. But I did notice, and it was more than a little unnerving. It’s not like I was about to break or anything. I think I liked it a lot better when he thought I’d won the last battle with this demon.
Red Moon hadn’t changed a whole lot since we were last there, though the few changes were major ones. Like our old house? It was completely gone, along with the other houses on our block. They’d been replaced by a mini-mall of all things. My old school, I noted with no small amount of satisfaction, was also gone. Construction had just completed on the new Community Center that went up in its place.
We stood before the building, gazing at it with trepidation. Or at least I was. Dean…well, he was alternating between scouting out the area and watching me gaze at the building with trepidation. I hated that this place had such an effect on me. I tried to remind myself that it wasn’t the building that had harmed me, and even if it had been, that building was long gone.
But the fear still remained.
It was stupid. It’d been ten years and since that time, I’d faced countless things that could have killed me, so why was this particular place any different? Dean was right in pointing out that in the end I survived, and that I was stronger now. Plus I didn’t exactly fit the same profile I did back then. It had preyed on my weakness and fed on my innocence.
“So…is it in there?” Dean asked, glancing at me sideways.
“How am I supposed to know?” I asked, rubbing my temple tiredly as if it could rub away the tension headache that was starting to worsen. Dean looked at me pointedly. This wasn’t that type of headache. I shook my head. “Doesn’t work like that…” I reminded him. Not that I really knew how my visions did work.
I could feel the thing’s presence, though. I couldn’t tell for sure if it centered on the building, but it was definitely there in town.
Dean shrugged, and looked back up at the building. “Well, only one way to find out,” he concluded and started up the stairs. I wanted to call him back, but I knew that was why we were there. The faster we found and exorcised the thing, the sooner we could leave Red Moon behind forever. And I’d never even have to think about what happened.
With that in mind, I headed up the stairs after Dean.
The doors were currently blocked by a banner announcing that the Grand Opening would be celebrated by a dance to take place in just a couple days. Dean ducked under the banner to go check the doors as I stood watch. So far nobody seemed to be taking much notice of us, but the last thing we needed was to be arrested in that town. I didn’t want to spend any more time there than was absolutely necessary. I could already feel the hand of evil closing in on me, a bony finger tracing slowly down my spine. I could feel its cold breath on the back of my neck, as it whispered into my ear. Sammy.
I flinched so hard I stumbled and almost fell when suddenly Dean was there again, steadying me. “Whoa. You’re looking a little green. You gonna hurl there, Sammy?” Dean asked, and I flinched at the moniker. “Sorry…Sam,” he amended quickly.
“I’m fine,” I assured him, and myself. I’m fine. I’m fine. Really, I’m fine.
Dean didn’t look impressed with my answer, but didn’t pursue it. “It’s locked,” he informed me. “It shouldn’t be hard to pick, but I think we should wait until after dark.” I nodded, but didn’t trust myself to speak. The thought of coming back after dark terrified me, though I refused to admit it aloud. It was dumb anyway; if the thing wanted to attack me, it already proved that it had no qualms about doing so in the daylight. “In the meantime we’ll stake out a place to stay and maybe hit the local library.” Dean was still watching me critically, so I forced myself again to nod and act like everything was normal.
Well, normal for us anyway.
“I think it would be best if we stayed in Dalton tonight,” Dean announced as he began driving back through town. I knew that wasn’t really what he thought, but what he figured I would want to do. He was right, I would far rather put distance between us and this town, but it was a bad plan. It’d be really inconvenient to drive out to Dalton to rest up only to drive all the way back after dark. Besides, assuming we did find the demon, the last thing we’d want is to have to drive twenty odd miles back after battle in order to clean up, tend to wounds, and rest.
“No. There’s an inn on Main,” I replied keeping my voice steady.
“You sure?” I knew he wasn’t asking about the existence of the inn but giving me an out without making me ask for it.
“Yeah, I saw it on the way into town.”
Dean’s gaze lingered on me a few moments too long for me to mistake it as anything other than concern, but he didn’t say anything.
As soon as we checked into the hotel, we hit the library, hoping to find anything that might help us figure out what exactly it was we were dealing with. We started with the fact that it had been ten years almost to the date of when I was attacked, and pulled newspapers from the archive for April 30th through May 3rd for each of the past few decades.
There was nothing obvious mentioned in 1976. Or 1956. One look at Dean told me that there was nothing from the years he was looking through, either. His eyes met mine before his attention slowly drifted over to the paper that I had purposely been avoiding.
1996.
“Shhhh,” a voice hissed into my ear, a hand feeling like lead as it pressed down on my shoulder. I flinched as another hand traced down my jaw and traveled down until the fingernail pressed lightly into the hollow of my throat. I closed my eyes as the finger pressed slightly, the threat clear. “Shhh…Sammy…”
I flinched as I swore I could actually hear it, though it was years ago.
I grabbed the stack of papers as Dean started to reach for it. I didn’t want to look at it, but I needed to know. I flipped to the front page of the April 30th edition. There was a picture of my old school on the front page.
Sammy.
I shivered involuntarily and shoved the paper toward Dean, after all. I didn’t even want to read the headline. I watched as he looked at me over the top of the paper for a few moments before slowly looking down through the article. It wasn’t going to be helpful anyway. There was no way that there was even close to the full story…what the police and the reporters knew amounted to a load of crap.
“Sammy?”
I nearly jumped out of my skin as I felt a hand drop onto my shoulder. As it was, I leapt to my feet, knocking over my chair in the process. I whirled around and was startled to find myself looking down at a slightly familiar young woman.
“Oh my God, I’m sorry,” the woman apologized quickly, her cheeks turning pink with embarrassment. “I didn’t mean to startle you. Are you…Sammy Winchester?”
“It’s just Sam,” I corrected automatically, my mind racing as I tried to place who she was. I couldn’t place her, but fortunately there was a cheat sheet. Her name tag. Ms. Willets-Wallace. She didn’t look at all like the girl I used to know, but “Merry Death?” her old nickname flew from nowhere.
“It’s just Meredith now,” she replied with a laugh. “I thought that was you!” Her arms circled my waist and she hugged me tight. Over her shoulder, I saw Dean raising his eyebrow at me as I awkwardly returned the embrace. “My God, Sammy Winchester. You’ve gotten so…tall. I haven’t seen you since…” she suddenly stiffened in my arms. Slowly her head tilted up and she looked at me with concern.
I forced a smile. “Yeah, well…we left town a few days after that.”
She nodded. “I knew that,” she admitted quietly. “I wanted to go see you, but…”
Dean cleared his throat loudly and I glanced over at him. Both of his eyebrows were now raised and he looked back at Meredith. I returned my attention to her, ignoring his silent questioning.
“It’s okay, they wouldn’t have let you anyway. They didn’t even let my family in to see me those first few days.”
“I was so worried about you. You seemed totally fine when I left, and then…What happened?” she asked. Her eyes widened. “Oh you don’t have to answer that. I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to bring up!” Her cheeks pinked further. “So, how are you? What are you doing back here?”
Dean cleared his throat again and I was startled to realize that he had gotten up and was now standing right behind me. “Oh, um, Meredith, this is my big brother Dean. Dean, this is my friend, Meredith,” I introduced him to only real friend I’d made during our few weeks in Red Moon.
“Madam Librarian,” Dean greeted, flashing a borderline lecherous grin.
Meredith’s eyes lit with amusement as she turned to my brother. “So you’re the infamous Dean Winchester,” she greeted him. “We meet at last.”
Dean downgraded to one of his patented smirks, though I could see the slight hint of confusion in his eyes. “The man, the legend,” he agreed.
“You know my sister still curses your name?”
Dean’s brow furrowed for a moment, but then he nodded in understanding as he noticed her nametag. “You’re Jayne’s little sister?”
“Half-sister, thank you very much,” she corrected, her mouth twisting shrewdly. I almost laughed, remembering just how much she used to detest everything about her older sister. As much as I’d wanted to emulate Dean back then, she’d wanted to differentiate herself from her sister. I’d never even known she was a blonde before because she’d worn her hair dyed black back then. She also stopped wearing the pale makeup and black lipstick that used to adorn her face. “You were responsible for the single worst experience in her life, you know,” Meredith informed Dean, though her eyes were still lit with amusement. At his dubious look, she elaborated. “My god, Jayne Willits having to go to a dance without a date?”
“That’s the worst thing that ever happened to her,” Dean repeated back in disbelief.
Meredith laughed. “The way she tells it, it was a fate worse than death. Never mind that for her it was just one dance, for me it was like...story of my life. But you know, you do have the opportunity to make it up to her.” Dean’s eyebrow rose again, questioning. “There’s a dance to celebrate the new Community Center coming up in just a few days. Déjà vu much, am I right?”
I frowned as that sank in. There was exactly such a dance planned the last time we were in Red Moon. For exactly the same purpose, too. “Wait. What happened to the old…New Community Center?”
Meredith’s eyes widened. “You didn’t hear?” She shook her head. “Oh of course you didn’t, you’d already left town.” She got a faraway look in her eyes.
“What happened?” I asked again.
“There was a fire just a few days after it opened. The whole building was completely destroyed. They tried to save it, but I guess the fire spread too fast. It was too late before the fire department even managed to get there. The people who were there didn’t even have a chance to get out.” I saw tears forming in her eyes and gave her a sympathetic smile. “It was a big blow to the whole town. A town this size losing twenty-eight people all at once? Everyone knew all of the victims. It was devastating.”
“Did they ever find out what caused it?” I asked gently.
“They said that it was a problem in the electrical wiring.”
“But…” Dean prompted, sensing, as I did, that she wasn’t saying everything.
She sighed, but nodded. “But that didn’t really make any sense. The word is that there were six distinct points of origin.” Dean and I exchanged glances. “Electrical wiring problem I get, but what are the odds that six completely different places in the wiring would suddenly burst into flame at the same time?”
Pretty damn slim. Neither Dean or I answered, but it was clear we didn’t need to; Meredith already had that part figured.
“It’s taken us all a long time to get over that, but they finally decided it was time to rebuild. There’s a dance celebrating the opening on the 1st. Are you still going to be in town?” she blinked. “Not that I’m not happy to see you, but what are you doing here?”
“Well we were supposed to be visiting some friends in Briarville, but they bailed on us last minute, so we figured we’d check out our old haunt,” Dean explained.
Meredith nodded, though she gave him a strange look before turning back to me. “I’m off work in a few minutes; you wouldn’t by chance want to go get some coffee or something?”
Dean gave me a little nudge. “Yeah, you two crazy kids should definitely go catch up.” He waggled his eyebrows a little bit as he caught me glancing at him. I had to force myself not to roll my eyes.
“Sure, that’d be great,” I replied to Meredith, though. Maybe I’d be able to get more information that could help us figure out exactly why we were here.
“Okay. I just have to finish shelving some returns, and then I’ll meet you back here,” she suggested. I nodded, smiling as she gazed up at me a few moments longer. “I’m really glad to see you again, Sam. I always wondered what happened to you.” She lingered for just a moment longer before returning to her work.
Dean smirked as soon as she was out of sight. “So, what do you know. Little Sam had a girlfriend?”
“It wasn’t like that. She just…neither of us really had any friends here. We just kind of hung out a little bit, that’s all.”
“You’re telling me that girl,” he looked in the direction Meredith had gone, “didn’t have friends? Were the guys at your school actually blind?”
I scowled slightly, but didn’t answer. My brother could be surprisingly shallow at times. Or perhaps not so surprisingly. “Okay, so maybe it’s just a coincidence, but I find it a little weird that both times we end up here in town they’ve just finished building a new community center,” I changed the subject. “Maybe what we’re looking for isn’t time based like we were thinking. What if it’s event based.”
“We need to see if we can find out anything about previous community centers,” he stated, sounding doubtful.
“Not necessarily. But what about looking around the times of any new building constructions?”
“There’s also been a town dance both times,” Dean acknowledged, looking thoughtful. “Okay, while you go,” he looked at me leeringly, “talk to Meredith…” I rolled my eyes at his obviousness, “…see if you can find out what buildings around here are new. And when they were built--like that mini-mall. I’ll start looking back at old society pages and see if I can find anything odd surrounding town shindigs.”
I nodded and sat down to look through old papers until Meredith was finished working. I was still tempted to look at the newspaper from the day after my “accident”, but every time I even glanced at it, my sense of foreboding increased. I was relieved when I saw Meredith returning and I was able to take a break from searching the archives.
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Dean instructed me when he looked up and saw her coming.
“Dean, there isn’t anything you wouldn’t do,” I shot back.
He gave me a look as if to say, ‘and your point is…?’
I ignored him and rose up to greet Meredith before she got close enough for Dean to embarrass either of us.
“So what are you really doing in town?” Meredith asked as we left the library.
“Oh, we were going to visit some friends but they bailed on us, so we decided to stop back here,” I recited Dean’s story.
“And you just thought it would be fun to go to the library and pull half of the newspaper archives out for a look? Come on, Sammy, the Red Moon Gazette is hardly an exciting read. So you had to be looking for something. Am I right?”
“Just ‘Sam’, please,” I reminded her, my stomach roiling at the moniker.
She waited for a moment for me to answer, and then seemed to realize that I wasn’t going to. “Okay, Sam. What were you looking for?”
“Well I…” my mind was a complete blank. Dean was always so much better at coming up with things like this on the spot. And I hated lying to friends. I’m sure no matter what I came up with, it wouldn’t be believed; the guilt had to already be showing on my face. “I…”
“Is it about what happened to you?” she asked softly, and I felt her hand lightly brush against my arm. When I didn’t answer right away she stopped walking and waited for me to turn around and face her. “You probably didn’t know this, but you saved my life,” she informed me quietly. I didn’t understand; I hadn’t done anything. That I could remember anyway. “You were there all of what? Three weeks? But you saw what people who knew me my entire life couldn’t. Or wouldn’t,” she answered my unspoken question. “I was so sure that no one could ever like someone like me. Someone who wasn’t…Jayne, I guess. Everyone loved her and I was just weird, morbid little Merry Death. But you saw past that,” she smiled sadly. “You were my only friend, and I completely missed that you were in some sort of trouble,” she shook her head. “I still don’t get it. One minute we were talking and laughing and you were totally cheering me up. Then next thing I know there were sirens and police cars.” She looked up at me sadly. “And everybody was saying that you’d tried to kill yourself.”
I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. My mind was too busy trying to stop the flood of memories she was trying to open. I didn’t want to remember that day.
I felt the unnaturally cold hand brush my cheek, and tried to flinch away from it. SammySammyshhhhhSammy. I could feel heavy breath against the back of my neck.
“The paper said that someone attacked you. I’ve never gotten past that, Sam. You were there for me and I totally failed you. I know it’s selfish of me to ask, and I hate dredging up bad memories, but I really need to know. What happened to you, Sammy?”
No! I tried to shove away so hard that I fell back myself, tumbling to the floor in an awkward tangle of limbs. I scrambled to my feet and raced for the door, ignoring the startled voice of my teacher calling after me. “Sammy?”
“Sammy?”
I gaped at Meredith, her face suddenly out of focus.
No. No. Nonono. I raced for the door, but slid to a halt as I saw Mr. Janssen somehow there in front of me. I shook my head, my eyes wide with fright, knowing that my teacher couldn’t possibly be there since I’d just left him in the classroom. Hadn’t I? Yes, I could hear him still in the room, heavy footsteps coming closer. I shook my head, opening my mouth to yell for help, but no sound would emerge.
“Sammy?” Mr. Janssen called in a soft, worried voice. I turned and fled the only other direction I could, through the basement access door and barreling down the stairs, tripping and falling down the last half-flight.
“Sam can you hear me?”
I wanted to tell her I didn’t remember. I wanted to shove the memories out of my head, but the floodgates were open and there was no holding them back.
I opened my mouth, but no sound would emerge.
“Sammy?”
Sammy. I know you’re here, Sammy…come out come out wherever you are.
I cringed as I heard the low chuckle and stepped backward, away from the sound. Slowly and silently I shuffled deeper into the dark cold shadows.
“Do you need me to get your brother? Sam talk to me!” Meredith’s voice was rising.
I bit my lip and took another step back, praying that the shadows would protect me. Instead my heart nearly exploded when I felt something grab me from behind. An invisible hand clamped over my mouth as I felt an arm encircling my waist, yanking me off my feet and pulling me back against my assailant’s body. NOOO!
Shhhhh.
My struggles went unheeded as I was pulled farther into the darkness.
I felt the ground rushing toward me, but could do nothing to stop it as the darkness pulled me in.
Chapter End Notes:
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