Standing in the Storm

23. Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things

The Impala zoomed down a two-lane blacktop. Dean was driving and Sam was passenger. Tasie, Levi and Ethan were in back.

"Come on, Sam, I'm begging you. This is stupid," Dean said.

"Why?" Sam wondered.

"Going to visit Mom's grave? She doesn't even have a grave, there was no body left after the fire."

"She has a headstone."

"Yeah, put up by her uncle, a man we've never met. So you want to go pay your respects to a slab of granite put up by a stranger?"

"Dean, that's not the point."

"Well then, enlighten me, Sam."

"It's not about a body, or, or a casket. It's about her memory, okay?"

"Hmmm."

"And after Dad, it just... just feels like the right thing to do."

"It's irrational, is what it is."

"Look, man. No one asked you to come."

"Why don't we swing by the Roadhouse instead? I mean, we haven't heard anything about the demon lately, we should be hunting that son of a bitch down."

"That's a good idea, you and the others should. Just drop me off, I'll hitch a ride, and I'll meet you and the others there tomorrow."

"Right. To be... stuck with those people, making awkward small talk until you show up? No thanks."

Sam knelt before a headstone, digging in the ground with a folding knife. He pulled out a set of dog-tags from his pocket and sighed. "I think, um, I think Dad would have wanted you to have these." He buried them. "I love you, Mom."

Tasie placed a hand on Sam's shoulder and offered him a small smile. "I miss her."

"Me too."

Nearby, Dean and Levi, holding Ethan, were standing by another gravestone, marked as "Loving Father". They walked toward a dying tree and frowned. They noticed a perfect circle of dead grass surrounding a gravestone. They crouched down, fingering dead flowers.

Dean took a card from a man in a suit, then walked over to Sam and Tasie, followed by Levi.

"Angela Mason," Dean said. "She was a student at the local college, funeral was three days ago."

"And?" Sam and Tasie asked.

"And? You two saw her grave. Everything dead around it, in a perfect circle? You don't think that's a little weird?"

"Maybe the groundskeeper went a little agro with the pesticide," Sam guessed.

"No, we asked him," Levi said. "No pesticide, no chemicals. Nobody can explain it."

"Okay, so what are you two thinking?" Tasie questioned.

"I dunno. Unholy ground, maybe?"

"Un-"

"What? If something evil happened there, it could easily poison the ground. Remember the, the farm outside of Cedar Rapids?"

"Yeah, b-"

Dean cut her off. "Could be the sign of a demonic presence. Or the, the Angela girl's spirit, if it's powerful enough." Sam and Tasie nodded and turned away. "Well, don't get too excited, you might pull something."

"It's just... stumbling onto a hunt? Here of all places?" Sam said.

"So?"

"So? Are you sure this is about a hunt and not about something else?"