Dogtown

By Tidia & MOG, September 2006


Chapter 3/10

Hitting the Gloucester city limits, it was a coin toss as to what they would take care of first. As soon as they passed the small blue building that declared itself the ‘Home Style Laundry’, the search for a cheap motel was pushed to the back burner.

Inside the laundromat, the warm air and dim florescent lighting did little to create any kind of atmosphere that ranked much above ‘dingy’. Nevertheless, Dean slid his duffle bag off his shoulder and smiled. “I like this place.”

The younger Winchester gave his brother a confused look, until he noticed what was making his brother grin.

“You would.”

Each washer had a small plaque, serving as a nametag, which was stuck to the upper panel between the silver colored buttons and dial. From where Sam stood he could read several names - ‘Yvonne’, ‘Lili’, ‘Jayne’

Dean raised his eyebrows. “I’ve always had a thing for Italian women.” He emptied his duffle bag into a washer named ‘Sophia’, set the machine for an extra large, warm/cold wash, and primed it with quarters before crossing to a coin-fed detergent dispenser mounted on the wall by the door.

In one corner of the small building, a lone video game sat with a relic pinball machine keeping it company. A young teenage girl focused intently on ‘Street Fighter II’, while her friend slapped away at the flipper buttons of the NASCAR themed pinball game. A third girl sat on one of the dryers, chewing gum and looking bored.

It only took a few seconds after Sam and Dean’s entrance before she slid off the dryer and whispered to her friend at the pinball machine. The resulting giggles were soft, but still audible.

Sam was oblivious to the attention as he placed his clothes in ‘Marilyn’ and gave her a dollar in quarters. Booting up his laptop, he set it on the washing machine between his and the one Dean was using. He took the small container of detergent that his brother offered him. Dean waited until Sam was busy emptying soap into the tub before he slid the computer away from his younger sibling.

“Wireless is the best,” he said with a grin.

Sam frowned in reaction to his brother’s underhanded maneuver. “Yeah, especially when you’re not the one paying for it.”

“There’s another kind?”

Sam shot him a look and Dean tried to appear innocent. “Listen, man, it’s not my fault if people have unsecured networks in their homes.” He hit one of Sam’s bookmarked pages and pulled up information on the area known as Dogtown. A thought struck him and he glanced at his brother. “Hey, go get us some soap.”

“You just got some.”

“I know, now go get us some more…and talk to those girls while you’re over there. Maybe they can tell us about the girl that was attacked.”

“Why me?” Sam slid the laptop towards himself. “Why don’t you go talk to them?”

Dean turned the computer back again. “Hello? Age difference. They’ll think I’m a sexual predator.”

Sam threw his hands up. “And me?”

Smiling, Dean reached out to pinch his brother’s cheek, then lightly tapped it. “A fresh-faced college student.”

Rolling his eyes, Sam walked to the dispenser before faking the need for change for a dollar and approaching the girls. Dean tried to hide his grin when he heard a fit of giggles - he knew he’d just fed Sam to the sharks.

Twenty minutes later a cell phone chirped a tinny version of an excruciatingly upbeat pop song and the girls reluctantly responded to one of their moms calling them home.

Sam returned a wave as he gratefully rejoined Dean. “So, they said that Amy, that was her name, is a friend of theirs and she swears - before she was attacked by a huge dog with red eyes - that there was something else in the woods. She said no one else was around but she heard a voice – said something like ‘a toll must be made’. They believe her, they were seriously shook.”

“Seriously shook?” Dean looked out the laundromat’s large, front window to where the girls stood, clandestinely watching them, then glanced back at his brother. “Ten minutes with teeny-boppers and you’re sounding just like them. Don’t suppose you also talked about what happened on this week’s ‘One Tree Hill’?”

Sam’s mouth tightened into a small frown. “It was twenty minutes, and next time you can go talk to them.” He snatched his laptop off the washer and dropped down into a chair a few feet away. “Dickweed,” he whispered under his breath, letting the din of the sloshing machines cover the insult.

“Bitch,” Dean replied.

Sam stared at his brother, exasperated that he couldn’t get away with the discreet comment. “How did you hear that?”

Dean flashed a cocky grin and pointed to the machine that was finishing its first cycle. “Marilyn told me.”


It was off-season in the small town and most of the motels that catered to the tourist trade wouldn’t be open for several months. The boys made their way to Bass Rocks, at the tip of Gloucester, which revealed one motel open year-long for business. It was a classic Victorian home, and from the casual amount of disarray, it was obvious the owners were using the down time for minor renovations.
A tarp was spread out on the small front porch, and a ladder and a can of half-empty sky blue paint sat, unattended.

“I like it,” Sam commented, looking up at the ceiling of the porch. “I guess it’s like having summer skies all year round.”

Dean squeezed past the ladder and responded in a tone that indicated he was surprised at the assumption. “Dude…it’s to keep witches away.”

Sam stared at his brother for a long moment. “That is quite possibly one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard you say.”

A conservative looking, middle-aged man in paint-stained denim overalls clomped up the steps and nodded to the brothers before he picked up a brush lying across the top of the paint can.

Sam smiled and pointed upward. “Excuse me, the blue on the ceiling here…”

The man glanced up briefly, then stared at Sam and answered in a broad New England accent. “Keeps away the witches.”

Dean shrugged as he opened the front door. “Told ya.”


In the room, Dean flipped through pamphlets that Sam picked up in the lobby. “This is my favorite type of research - the kind with color photos.”
Sam stretched himself out on the double bed. “How much research can there be? I mean, you were here before…and didn’t Caleb give you something to go on when he called?”

Dean’s body language changed subtly and he turned away from his brother to lay the pamphlets on a tall dresser in the corner. “It’s just a rumor at this point. There’s nothing to ‘know’ until we check things out. Caleb thinks it’s connected to one of the last occupants of Dogtown, Tammy Younger - they called her “Queen of the Witches.”

“Tammy?” Sam repeated. “Isn’t that a little modern for the 1800s?”

“Short for Thomazine.”

Sam winced at the ugliness of the name but prompted his brother to continue. “So, we have a witch and a red-eyed dog and…what else?”

Dean brought his gaze back to Sam. “And nothing, Caleb’s in California. He heard a rumor, we’re gonna check it out.”

For a brief moment, Sam felt as if he was speaking to their dad. The ‘need to know’ approach was never one that sat well with Sam, but for Dean’s sake, he’d let it go unless he felt it would put either of them at risk. Instead of pressing further, he rolled off the bed and retrieved their father’s journal. “So, we’re looking for something dog-like with red eyes.”

He sat on the bed and scanned sections of the book as Dean unpacked some of their freshly laundered clothes.

“The red eyes should narrow it down,” offered Dean.

“Okay, for possibilities we have…Grims, but those protect against evil, and it’s rare to find them outside a graveyard. Then there’s one of my personal favorites - a Dip.”

Dean grinned. “Yeah, I can see why you’d feel a connection to a dip.”

Sam flipped his brother off, but kept reading. “This one is a demonic dog that drinks people’s blood. There’s also the Bargest, but that’s usually indigenous to England…”

“Does it have bad teeth?” Dean joked.

“You could say so.” Sam turned the journal so his brother could see the photocopy taped to the page - an old woodblock print of a monstrous, goblin-like dog with huge teeth and claws.

Dean winced. “That is one f’ugly mutt. I hope no one imported that thing in. Demon dogs should stay in their own country.”

Sam continued to flip through the book. “I mean it could be almost anything. It couldhave been a coyote.” He covered his mouth with the back of his hand as a long yawn escaped. The bed he sat on was the first one he’d seen since they’d left Oklahoma.

Dean pulled the journal away, closed it and placed it on the nightstand between the two beds before drawing the blinds against the late morning sun. “Get some sleep. Tonight I want to do a little recon…find out exactly what kind of huge, red-eyed coyotes they’ve got around here.”

Sam welcomed the idea of sleeping somewhere other than the passenger’s seat of the Impala. He kicked off his shoes and dropped his jeans on the end of the bed. Climbing under the covers, he let the coolness of the cotton sheets envelope his body.

He looked at his brother, who was still moving about the room. “You gonna get some sleep too?”

“Yeah, man, in a bit…just wanna prep a little first.”

Before Sam closed his eyes, he saw Dean pull the sawed-off shotgun from their equipment bag.