Dogtown

By Tidia & MOG, September 2006


Chapter 2/10

They had packed up quickly, leaving the hotel room in Millerton, Oklahoma less than ten minutes after Dean received Caleb’s call. A day and a half later, they crossed into Massachusetts, getting closer to their destination of Gloucester.

Conversation had been minimal. Neither man had broached the subject of Dean’s recently discovered ability to heal Sam’s injuries, and the older Winchester had yet to give any insight into his ‘unfinished business’.

Sam hadn’t bothered to ask. Of all the Winchester men, he knew he was the most unguarded and demonstrative – and that sure wasn’t saying a lot. Dean fell into the protector role so easily, to the point where he also fiercely protected his own thoughts and emotions. The deeper Dean was affected by something, the less he wanted to talk about it.

So rather than being direct, Sam chose to circumvent his brother and pursue his own method of discovery. He researched, delving into the history of the small seaside town and its surroundings.

Slouched in the passenger’s seat of the Impala, he balanced his laptop on his knees and took a sip of his double tall, one pump hazelnut latte.

Dean shot his brother a sideways glance. “Ya know, we’re in Dunkin’ Donuts territory now. You can get real coffee. You don’t have to be getting those pussy drinks anymore.”

Sam scanned through a site he’d bookmarked for off-line use and answered without looking at his brother. “Yeah, well, next time you find a Dunkin’ Donuts with free wifi, we can stop. Till then, Starbucks works just fine for me. Speaking of which…”

He took another drink of coffee and tapped the laptop’s screen. “At our last stop, I looked through the past week’s archives of the Gloucester paper. Found this article about an attack on a fourteen-year-old girl that took place the day before Caleb called you. It was buried on, like, page fifteen and it sounds like they’re writing it off as a coyote. There was this though - ‘the girl claimed the animal had red eyes and disappeared once she crossed the threshold of the woods’.”

He clicked open a second bookmarked page and scanned the information he’d discovered. “Turns out that area is conservation land - mostly used by hikers and bird watchers - but the locals call it Dogtown. It used to be a farming village, but after the War of 1812 it seems the farmers weren’t too thrilled with how easy of a target it was for coastal bombardment so they pretty much moved out…leaving mostly the widows of men who never returned from the sea or the war."

“This page says that over the next few decades, the town got pretty seedy and the widows kept dogs for protection, but eventually the women left or died and the dogs became wild. This turned into a bunch of feral dogs roaming in packs and howling at night. Sounds like an area prime for ghost stories to me.”

Sam glanced at his brother. “I gotta ask, man…did we come all the way up here to play animal control? ‘Cause this is the only thing I’ve found that’s even close to our usual gig.”

He shut down his laptop as he shook his head. “A fourteen-year-old in the woods at sunset - no big surprise that she thought she saw something creepy. It probably was coyotes. I mean, c’mon, Dean, don’t tell me ghost dogs are what had us playing Cannonball Run all the way up here.”

Dean kept his eyes locked on the highway. “It’s like I said last night, some stuff went down in the same area about two years ago. We thought things were taken care of…”

“That’s another thing - why are we taking Caleb’s sloppy seconds?” Sam looked out the window, watching the trees slip past. He knew if Dean was playing things this close to the vest then whatever he’d experienced had affected him far more than he was letting on. Sam worked at carefully antagonizing his brother, hoping to push him towards revealing more.

“I thought you liked Caleb,” replied Dean. He knew exactly what Sam was trying to do – it was the same tactic he would have used.

“I do, but we’re subcontractors now?” Sam scrunched down in the passenger seat, adjusting his long legs into a more comfortable position. “Getting coordinates from Dad is one thing, and that just sucks. But now we’re doing favors for his friends? Come on, man, what’s the real reason we’re up here?”

Dean plucked the Starbucks cup from his brother’s hand and sniffed it. “You have them add a shot of testosterone to this latte?”

Sam snatched the drink back but Dean just grinned. Dean had given his brother a generous amount of breathing room when Sam initially sought to keep his visions a secret. He hoped Sam’s stubbornness would take a breather until he was ready to talk.

“All right, yes, if it gets you to drop the history lesson – Dogtown is why we’re here. Not the attack on the girl specifically, but--” He stopped himself, more than a little surprised at how readily the explanation caught in his throat. “Listen bro, there’s an old saying - you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.” He sighed and smiled lazily as his thoughts slid to ones of a more amorous nature. “Always works for me.”

“Yeah, well, nobody is going to get near you if we don’t do some laundry,” replied Sam. It had been over a week since their limited wardrobe had seen the inside of a washing machine. Sam’s thoughts returned to the job. “Are we going to talk to the girl?”

Dean shook his head. “She’s fourteen - let’s leave her alone. She should be thinking about boys and clothes, not this kind of stuff.”

“Don’t see why,” Sam replied, turning his head toward the window again. “At fourteen, I was thinking about banshee attacks and protector symbols.”

“Dude, you are weird.” Dean turned up the stereo and tapped out a drumbeat on the steering wheel. “At fourteen, I was thinking about Cindy Hagerman and her older sister, Leslie.”