Sorry for making you all wait. Midterms are the bane of my life…

Pictures on the Wall: Chapter Three

Present Day...

Sam threw himself between the beds, pulling one of the flowery comforters over him in the hope that it would protect him from the glass. Doubt no longer lingered in his mind. How could it after this?

They had managed to stumble into a hotel with a supernatural side. Sam was blaming Dean because he’d been driving, he’d been awake for four days and he’d been crazy enough to pick this place.

Wait…

…Did that mean the pictures actually were moving?

“Unbelievable,” Sam muttered, and instantly wondered why. Unbelievable was a word that wasn’t supposed to belong in his vocabulary.

It seemed like an hour went by before every glass item in the room finally ceased to fall apart. Sam cautiously came out from under the sheets, mercifully free of any cuts. He glanced at his watch. He’d barely been in the room five minutes. He surveyed the damage, a twinge poking around in his stomach. The manager wasn’t going to be happy about this…

The voice had stopped screaming but whoever it had been, their cries (her cries, Sam corrected) had shattered all of the glass – from the windows to the TV.

The picture frames were cracked too, the photos within now scarred and scratched. Sam closed in on them just as the door opened, the chain having apparently snapped.

In walked Stan.

Sam, his heart jerking to make up for the beat it skipped, stared at the man and nervously waited for the questions that were sure to follow. But Stan was oblivious to everything – to Sam, to the glass, to the fact that his bare hands were getting cut up as he moved to gather up his sparse belongings.

“Hey, be careful.” Sam reached out to pull the man’s hand back. “You’ll get…”

His hand passed straight through Stan’s arm. Sam stumbled back in pained disbelief, his hand stinging as though he’d thrust it into water so cold it burned.

What was that about unbelievable again?

“Sir?” Sam’s tone held a shaky what the hell?

Stan…the ghost… the…whatever… didn’t turn to answer. Blood from the man’s hands continued to drip, even as his body faded from Sam’s vision. Sam looked at the carpet, watched as it stained until Stan’s figure was completely gone. The room grew icy, colder than the snow drifting in from outside. Shivering in his inadequate clothing, his breath steaming and swirling in the air, Sam backed out the destroyed room, trying to come up with a plan.

First things first. He had to salt this room to keep the ghost in (if it was a ghost…) and then, Sam swallowed hard, he had to wake Dean up.

---

One Week Ago…

They dealt with bodies in the town hall first. There were seven in total; all remaining in the positions death had given them. Sam had bored himself silly at college doing a basic anthropology class (because to go from hands-on experience with human remains to the theory of it all was a bit of a letdown), but he had to admit that the professionals really knew how to recreate the past with only dead bodies as evidence. They’d really gone all out on the details when the local press came to interview them. Dean's explanation of the abandoned town had come out of a local news article, the tale littered with ‘official’ details and the more interesting legend of the crazy mayor and the wrecked train. Apparently the story was well known in the small Colorado towns that surrounded the abandoned one. And the archaeologists and anthropologists who’d been swept up by the lost town were certainly proving useful; leaving every corpse nicely dug up and marked with weird little blue flags. White ropes bordered the impromptu graves, ensuring no one accidentally trampled the bones.

The pitiful rope defences had no hope of stopping Dean and Sam.

“This is nice and easy,” Dean commented as he doused a skeleton. “Don’t you wish it was always like this?”

Sam wiped his nose on the back of his left hand, his right busy salting the body. “Yeah. With pay too.”

“Some day kiddo.”

Sam sneezed out a, “Whatever.”

From not too far off came the unmistakable noise of a man in digestive pain, followed by noises of an unpleasant nature. The brothers shared a wince before Dean set the first body alight and moved onto the next. “Yeah, I don’t think we need to worry about them for the rest of the night.”

“Is there really a chance they’ll die?” Sam asked as they began the fuel and salt routine again. “Am I gonna be reading ‘Men die of rectum explosions in a Colorado ghost town’ in tomorrow’s news?”

Dean dropped the lighter fuel because he was laughing so hard.

Sam laughed too, feeling proud he could get that kind of reaction out of his older brother.

---

Present Day...

Sam pulled back Dean’s sheets, opened the blinds and turned on the lights. Dean’s only reaction was to curl up into a ball.

“Dean, you have to get up right now!”

Not even the slightly panicked edge to Sam’s voice was drawing Dean out. Sam had just one idea left before he resorted to ice water.

“Dean.” Sam’s voice rang with sincerity. “The pictures are moving. You were right.”

Dean shifted his head so his eyes peeked over his arms. “I am?” His voice was deepened by drowsiness and congestion.

“Yeah. You are.”

Not entirely trusting his brother yet, Dean said, “Are you just saying that? Because I’m really not in the mood to…”

“It’s the truth. Look, something happened this morning and… it’s just… our kind of weird.”

Dean sat up slowly, closing his eyes and holding his hands to his head as the dizziness and headache stepped up a level. “What is it? You know, aside from the moving pictures which I totally told you about and…”

“Do you want to know or do you want to bitch at me?”

Dean fell silent with a glare.

Sam gave all the details as he reached for the car keys he’d left beside the laptop. “I’m gonna go get some supplies out the trunk. You just… uh…”

“Go back to sleep?” Dean asked hopefully.

“No. Don’t.” Although Sam realised, he’d probably drugged his brother enough to ensure Dean would be taking several naps during the course of the day.

Dean just about managed to stop himself from curling up on the bed again. “Fine.” He got up, regretted it, and returned to the bed. “Ugh, crap.”

“What? What is it?”

Dean was looking pale, shivering despite the heat his body radiated. “How much did I drink last night?”

Sam had a few options at this juncture. One was the truth (“Oh, don’t worry bro, I drugged you"). Another was an answer to Dean’s question (“I kinda lost count after the fifth shot…”). The third was by far the most sensible – truth and a lie in one go.

“I think you caught my cold and decided to accept the free upgrade to the flu. You pretty much got in the room, hit the pillows and was out… Aside from when you noticed the pictures were moving.”

“Oh, so you believe me about that now?” Dean used the cabinet beside his bed as a support. This time he made it to his feet and stayed there. "Took you long enough."

“Didn’t I say that to wake you up?”

“I gotta make sure you’re not just lying.”

“I’m not lying.” Sam’s hands found his hips. “I saw a man who was very much alive last night walking around like some kind of ghost just now and there’s a chance his daughter really is missing. The screaming I heard definitely belonged to a girl.”

“Okay. Go grab some stuff from the trunk. I’ll get changed and…” Dean’s eyes drifted to the wall. “Hey, where did the pictures go?”

“Uh…”

“Sam?”

Sam retrieved them from their hiding place. Seeing Dean’s raised eyebrow, Sam answered, “I thought you were hallucinating and I wanted to avoid trouble.”

“Whatever.” Dean tossed the pictures onto his bed, yawning before sneezes broke through. Clearing his throat, Dean shuffled off to the bathroom, a few more sneezes stirring up the air as he went. He tottered forward, grabbing the wall to keep himself steady. “Pick me up something to drink on the way back.” And with that order, he stepped into the bathroom and shut the door.

Sam waited for a moment, making sure he didn’t hear anything that signified his brother passing out… The flu could make people black out after all. When three minutes went by and the sound of the taps hit the air, Sam decided Dean was okay to be left alone and off he went to the car in search of supplies – for dealing with the supernatural and the flu.

---

One Week Ago…

It was after the third burnt body in the town hall that trouble reared its head. It wasn’t the murdered victims of course. It seemed that the ghost of the mayor, whose body was supposedly near the disused railroad, didn’t like people messing with his townsfolk.

Sam was thrown back first, crashing into one of the thankfully non-burning graves. Dean had enough time to see the scrawny, incredibly short mayor glare up at him. Then he too was crashing into the ground several metres back.

“I thought he’d be bigger,” Sam called, picking fragments of bone out of his clothes.

“I guess being a short-ass made him psychopathic.”

“Don’t get any funny ideas Dean,” Sam said, smirking smugly.

“Hey, I’m not short!” Dean got his feet under him, perhaps indignation at his brother’s suggestion driving him. “You just make me look that way…”

Sam just laughed.

The ghost was gone but there was a distinct feeling in the air, a presence that was beyond life. They made it back to the grave and each grabbed a shotgun before it appeared again, looming forward with an impossibly stretched face and hands like claws. Twin blasts from both men blew it apart. Dean dropped the gun and grabbed the matches, lighting up the fourth body before hurrying onto the next.

Sam tossed him the salt. “I’ll watch out for it. You deal with the dead.”

“Deal with them as in ‘let’s all sit down and powwow ‘ or…”

“Dean.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“And move fast. There’s no way the guards didn’t hear those shotgun blasts.”

“I told you,” Dean called back as he set fire to the fifth pile of bones and hurried to the sixth. “There’s no way any of ‘em are gonna feel like moving. Haven’t you ever…”

“No.” And that was all Sam allowed to be said on whatever subject Dean had tried to broach.

The ghost came back, appearing behind Dean. Sam yelled at him to drop. Dean had to dodge to the side, the burning bones in front of him too hot to stay close to. Sam fired, the ghost’s body again disappearing into dust-like swirls.

“Stubborn,” he commented, reloading as Dean prepared the next set of bones for their overdue cremation.

“I would be too if I was that vertically challenged.” Body number six was burning and the seventh was about to follow. “Gotta make up for it some how.”

“What, by being a psycho killer?”

Dean gave Sam a lecturing look. “That’s not the politically correct term y’know.”

“Oh yeah, ‘cause you’re always the one to stand in defence of ‘people holes’ and ‘police people’.”

“Hey, if Dick Van Dyke’s politically correct name is ‘Penis Truck Lesbian’, I’m all for it.”

This time, it was Dean who felt the pride of making his brother give a real laugh.

---

Present Day...

Dean emerged from the bathroom, looking rougher than before and, if possible, drowsier. His hair, short as it was, still managed to look messy and his cheeks were flushed an unhealthy red. He almost stumbled over the bag of weapons Sam had brought in, muttering complaints under his breath about not leaving bags where they could trip people. Still, Dean got the laptop up and running while Sam ringed the pictures in salt – just to be safe.

“I’ll look up the motel and see if there’re any missing persons related to it,” Dean said. “I’ll see if I can dig anything up on the owner too. What’s his name?”

“Er, somebody Hawkins.” Sam tried to recall the name he’d seen on the desk when they’d checked in last night. “Richard maybe?”

“How sure are you?” Dean asked, his fingers stabbing all over the keyboard.

“I can go make sure.”

“Okay. Just don’t, y’know, tip the guy off that we’re looking into his weird-ass hotel with its weird-ass moving pictures.”

“You’re still the only one seeing moving pictures. I’m hearing voices.”

Dean looked at his grinning brother. “I’m glad you’re proud of that Sammy.”

“At least I know now you’re not just insane. I was getting worried there.”

“Mmm.” Dean had his head resting beside the laptop now, one arm acting as a cushion and the other idly hanging over the keyboard. “Go. Get the name. I’ll….” He broke into a yawn.

“Don’t go back to sleep,” Sam said, even though he fully expected to return and find his brother dozing. Those tranquillisers weren’t out of his system yet. “I’ll line the door with fresh salt too.” He shook the can he had brought back from the car.

Dean pushed himself back up. “Right. Okay. Good.” A brief pause. Then, “Hey, Sam?”

Sam looked up from where he was sprinkling the salt. “Yeah?”

“Could you bring back some coffee?”

“Sure. I already left you some water on the nightstand. Found a vending machine.”

"Oh, thanks."

"I also got the last of the cold meds too."

"I'll take some."

"Okay." Sam put the salt canister down and headed out the room.

And when he returned fifteen minutes later, armed with coffee, another bottle of water, the daily newspaper and the certain knowledge that the owner’s name was indeed Richard Hawkins, Dean was asleep again with his face planted to the desk.

Oh well, Sam mused as he drank, more coffee for him.

He carefully slid the laptop away from Dean, noticing that his brother was halfway through typing in words on a local newspaper’s website. Sam easily finished the sentence and hit Enter.

The result was disturbing.

Missing people. Lots of missing people, all disappearing from the same county… This county. The motel’s county.

There were pictures of all the missing, physical descriptions and dates of disappearances as well.

Dean had seen people in the pictures.

Sam had heard a girl screaming and witnessed a ghost who had been living just hours earlier.

He shook his brother awake. “Did you get the coffee?” Was Dean’s first question.

“No.” Sam figured that was better than the truth. He passed his brother a bottle of water instead. “Drink. It’ll soothe your throat.”

Dean pushed himself up, groaning and slipping his hand beneath his nose to work out the itch. “’Soothe my throat’? You need to learn the benefits of channel surfing during commercials. You sound like a voice-over.”

“Sorry. Here.” Sam handed over a bunch of tissues. “Good thing motel rooms come with those huh?”

“You’re a weird brother,” was Dean’s way of saying thank you for supplying these much needed pieces of tissue paper, dear brother, because my nose seems to be out-gushing the Niagara Falls.

…Yeah okay, maybe not that exact phrasing.

Dean coughed, snorted and made a selection of other nasty noises, earning himself a grossed out Sam. “Sorry dude,” Dean said, not too happy himself with the nastiness clogging his throat and nasal passengers. “I can spit it out if you…”

“Ugh, bad visuals.” But Sam shook himself and got back to the task. “There’s a reason I woke you up. You said you saw people in the pictures last night, right?”

“Yeah…?”

Sam angled the laptop in his brother’s direction. “Any of these people look familiar?” He then got up, deciding it was time to dose his brother up with flu remedies.

Rubbing his eyes and blinking a few times, Dean looked over the pictures Sam had found. His body grew heavier with dread, mingling with the flu-induced aches. “Yeah,” he said. “I saw them.” He pointed at the picture of an older woman whose photo defined her as the stereotypical, cookie-baking, always smiling grandmother. “She was smiling like that last night.” Dean picked up the picture he had seen her in. He stared at it but there was nothing. He dropped it back perfectly in its salt circle, and looked at Sam with tired eyes. “What the hell is going on here?”

Sam shrugged. “I don’t know. But we probably shouldn’t leave until this thing is solved.”

“This is some seriously bad timing.” Dean was holding his head in his hands. “We have crappy luck.”

“We really do.” Sam held out a pair of cold and flu pills. “Take them. It helped me.”

“I’m not taking Benadryl. That stuff knocks me out.”

“It’s not Benadryl.” And Sam didn’t want to knock his brother out again anyway.

Dean looked at the pills for a little longer. Then he took them, swallowed them both down with a huge gulp of water and made a face when his stomach gave a worrisome tremble. But he didn’t linger on it, figuring that forcing his attention elsewhere would help him feel better. “Okay so, is there any connection between the missing?”

Sam pulled the laptop back and quickly scanned the missing persons reports. “Not that I can tell. They’re all from different towns, different states, male and female, huge range in ages…”

“How many are missing?”

“Seven,” Sam surmised. “Nine if you add the girl and her father from this morning…”

Dean didn’t respond. He had a thoughtful expression on his face. “So, what, we’re dealing with something that can steal people and seal them in pictures?”

“And it creates apparitions.”

“Yeah let’s not worry about that,” Dean muttered, massaging his temples.

“We kinda have to...”

Dean waved a hand. “Later.”

Sam made a face. Dean made one back.

“Not taking everything into account is going to get us nowhere,” Sam reminded.

Dean shrugged, stood up and headed back to his bed. He grabbed his blanket, wrapped it around him and returned to his seat. “Fine. How do you want to do this? Find the nearest library and see if there’s anything dodgy about the motel’s past or play it by ear and wave some guns to see where that gets us?”

“Jail,” Sam responded without missing a beat. “Waving guns will land us in jail and you’ll go down for more crimes than…”

“…technically I’m dead so…”

“And I’ll be charged with aiding and abetting.”

“You’re getting off topic Sam. Focus a little.”

They shared another look. Sam sighed, his face pulling itself into an expression the most motherly of motherly hens would be proud of. “I’m going to the library and you’re staying here.”

“What if the pictures get me?” Dean was too bunged up, achy and tired to care if that came out sounding like real fear rather than teasing.

“I’ll set up some protection.”

“Good protection?”

Sam raised an eyebrow. “Are you trying to sound like a child?”

“Whatev-“ But Dean’s attention was suddenly firmly on one of the pictures. He grabbed it and watched, seeing something beyond Sam’s vision. “I still don’t get it.” He wasn’t talking to his brother. “What? What is it that you want old lady?”

Sam didn’t comment. No matter how hard he looked, all he saw were reflections on the frame’s glass. So he got up, gathered a few things for his impending research jaunt, and then began carefully laying out a variety of protection symbols to ensure trouble didn’t find Dean.

He had to hope that the flu would stop Dean from finding trouble himself.

“Call me if you find something,” Dean said as Sam headed off. Then, to the picture, “Lady, I can’t do anything if you don’t start speaking up. And if you can’t talk, gesture or something. How hard can that be?”

Sam shook his head. “You don’t have any manners,” he commented. Then he had to make a grab for the tissues when gargantuan sneezes began exploding out of Dean. “Just make sure you don’t sneeze over the laptop and break it with your…”

“Ugh,” Dean wiped his nose and sniffed, loudly. “Now who’s being gross?”

“You win, hands down.”

“Whatever.”

“I’ll pick up some more tissues on the way back.”

“Mm.”

“Don’t do anything stupid.”

“Mm.”

“I mean it.”

“You always do.”

“Yeah, and what happens?”

Dean shrugged and smiled, both lacking their usual spark. “It’s a gift. Can’t help it.”

“Do I have to lock you in?”

“Well, you could try…”

Sam just decided to leave.

“Hey, wait. Sam?”

Little brother turned to blanket-cocooned big brother. “Yeah?”

“Don’t you go showing up in these pictures next, all right? 'Cause I'm not jumping into boring nature world to get you back out, got it?”

Translation: Take care.

“Yeah. Don’t worry.”

“But if you do? Speak up or gesture ‘cause I’m getting pretty tired of this crowd. Old lady’s got friends now and they’re all…”

The door slammed shut.

“…wrong, somehow.”

TBC…

Seriously, I’m so sorry I made you guys wait. I can’t promise the next chapter next week either ‘cause I have yet another history midterm. Evil, evil professor!!

Thanks for reading.