Marishka Winchester

Wendigo

        Marishka has always liked the woods. She loved the vast near isolation from other humans and the quiet peacefulness. Even though they are often scary to others, they appeal to her greatly. Dean's black Impala was shooting through a forest as they made their way into Colorado. Dean is blasting some rock music, one hand on the top of the steering wheel, the sun glinting off his leather jacket slightly. Sam lays passed out in shotgun, his tan coat moving up and own with his shoulders as he breathes softly. Marishka sighs and adjusts her clothing, her red and black flannel twisted around her torso, her black under shirt also all over the place, on top of her jeans pinching her thighs a bit. These were the troubles of sitting in a car for 8 hours straight.
All of a sudden, Sam gasps, shooting up. Marishka turns her attention over to her brother, raising an eyebrow. Dean shoots a worried look at Sam, who was breathing heavily. He blinks a couple times before rubbing his eyes, "You okay?" Dean asks.
"Yeah, I'm fine." Sam replies, like it was obvious.
"Another nightmare?" Marishka asks him, eyeing him to make sure he wasn't hurt or anything. Sam just clears his throat, ignoring her question. Marishka sighs; that's what she thought.
"You want to drive for a while?" Dean asks him
Sam chuckles in disbelief, "In your whole life, you never once asked me that."
"Just thought you might want to, never mind." Dean mutters, a bit defensive.
Marishka moves to the edge of her seat, or as far as her seat belt would let her, sticking her head between the brothers, fixing Dean with a pair of puppy dog eyes,"Can I drive?"
"No way. I'm not letting a kid drive my car." Dean shot back, using the hand not on the steering wheel to cover her face with her hand and push her back.
She scowled, pushing his hand away, "I'm not a kid."
Sam sighs, interrupting the other sibling's bickering, "Look, you two are worried about me, I get it, and thank you, but I'm perfectly okay."
"Mmmhmm." Dean mumbles, focusing back on the road. Marishka sighs, looking over at Sam's lap as he pulls a map out.
"Alright." He clears his throat again, "Where are we?"
"We are just outside of Grand Junction." Dean booms theatrically, his good humor back again.
Sam adjusts the map, folding it so he could focus on the big red X that marked the coordinates Dad gave them. He took a deep breath in, "You know what, maybe we shouldn't have left Stanford so soon."
"Sam, we dug around there for a week. We came up with nothing." Marishka whispered gently. "If you want to find the thing that killed Jessica..."
"We gotta find Dad first." He finished with a heavy sigh.
"Dad disappearing and that thing showing up again after 20 years. It's not a coincidence. Dad will have answers, he'll know what to do."
"It's weird guys, these coordinates he left us. This Black Water Ridge..."
"What about it?" Dean asked, sounding a bit irritated.
"There's nothing there. It's just woods." Sam put the map down, dumbfounded. "Why is he sending us to the middle of nowhere?" He finished. They just looked at each other, none of the three knowing the answer.

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They pulled up to some small wooden building in a town near Black Water Ridge called Lost Creek. It had a sign that said 'Ranger station' out front. The inside of the building was covered in stuff about hunting, hiking, fishing, and camping. There was a giant 3D map over the forest area. Sam and Marishka were examining it while Dean looked at the various pictures hanging on the walls. "So Black water Ridge is pretty remote. It's cut off by these canyons here, rough terrain, dense forest, abandoned silver and gold mines all over the place." Sam informed Dean, showing Marishka the spots as well.
"Dudes, check out the size of this freakin' bear." Dean muttered, the amazement in his voice causing both Sam and Marishka to glance over at him. Curiosity peaked, Marishka walked over to where Dean was standing, Sam following. A full grown dude was barely visible behind the bear, and that's just with the bear lying on it's size.
"And a dozen or more grizzlies in the area." Marishka added to Sam's list, eyeing the picture.
Sam shook his head, "It's no nature hike, that's for sure."
"You three aren't planing to go near Black water Ridge by any chance?" Asked some ranger from behind them. He was kinda wrinkly, he had a little stubble on his chin and his hair was turning white in some places.
"Oh no sir, we're environmental study majors from UC Boulder. Just working on a paper." Sam lied, Marishka impressed by how quick he was able to come up with a good excuse.
"Recycle man." Dean said with a chuckle. Marishka rolled her eyes, he wasn't so good.
"Bull." The ranger said,"You're friends with that Haley girl right."
"Yes." Marishka jumped in. "Yes, we are, ranger..." She subtly glanced at the name tag, "Wilkinson."
Wilkinson shook his head and glanced down with a chuckle, obviously a bit annoyed,"Well I will tell you exactly what I told her. Her brother filled out a back country permit saying he won't be back from Blackwater till the twenty-fourth. That's not exactly a missing persons now, is it?" All three of them shook their heads in agreement, "Tell that girl to quit worrying. I'm sure her brother is just fine." He finished, starting to move on from them.
"Well that Haley girl is quit a pistol aye." Dean called.
The ranger looked back at them, "That is putting it mildly."
That was when an idea struck Marishka," Actually, you know what would help is if I could show her a copy of that back country permit, you know so she could see her brothers return date." She was almost offended by how impressed her brothers looked.
Dean took it from her the minute they were out the door, chuckling as he looked at it. "You cruising for a hook up or something?" Sam asked him.
"What do you mean?"
"The coordinates point towards Black water Ridge so what are we waiting for? Lets just go find Dad, I mean why even talk to this girl?" Sam asked impatiently.
"I don't know, why don't we know what we're walking into before we walk into it." Dean pointed out, giving Sam a weird look.
"What?"
"Since when are you' shoot first, ask questions later' anyway?" Marishka asked, sensing the same thing as Dean.
"Since now." He stated seriously, getting into the car.
"Oh really?" Dean mumbled, a small smile as he just shrugged and got in behind the wheel.
Marishka shook her head, sighing before she scrambled into the back as Dean revved up the engine.
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"You must be Haley Collins. I'm Dean and this is Sam an Marishka." He said, gesturing to the other too as he said their names, "We're rangers with the park services."
"Ranger Wilkinson sent us over. We wanted to ask you some questions about your brother Tommy." Marishka added from behind Dean.
The girl with shoulder length curly brown hair looked at them suspiciously with blue eyes, the light bouncing off her lip gloss slightly as she kept a poker face, "Let me see some ID."
"Oh." Dean muttered, feeling around in his pockets till he was able to find the fake ID, "There you go." He lifted it up against the screen door in front of her face.
She examined it for a moment, then reached down and opened the screen door, "Come on in."
"Thanks." Dean smiled at her, grabbing the door frame.
She looked at something over their shoulders, her eyebrows shooting up a bit, "Is that yours?" She asked, tilting her head towards his impala.
He smiled proudly, "Yeah."
"Nice car." She mumbles, letting go of the door and leading the way inside. Dean followed, looking back at Sam and Marishka.
He mouthed 'oh man.' at them with a glint in his eye. Sam just shook his head and followed while Marishka rolled her eyes.
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"So, it Tommy is not due back for awhile, how do you know something's wrong?" Sam asked Haley as she brought out a bowl to put on the dining room table where another one of her brother's sat.
"He checks in every day by cell. He emails photos, stupid little videos, but we haven't heard anything in over tree days now." She replied as she stir some sort of red sauce.
"Well, maybe he can't get cell reception." Marishka pointed out.
Haley shook her head, "He's got a satellite phone, too."
Dean leaned against the doorway of the small kitchen as Haley passed through it, "Could it be he's just having fun and forgot to check in?"
The other brother finally piped up, "He wouldn't do that." The kid had a brown hair growing out from a buzz cut, really scrawny frame, and spaced out brown eyes. He had on some sort of grey T-shirt from either a movie or a TV show.
"Our parents are gone." Haley says quietly, "It's just my two brothers and me. We all keep pretty close tabs on each other." Marishka could relate to that pretty well, better than she was really comfortable with.
"Can I see the pictures he sent you?" Sam asks suddenly.
Haley nods, going into another room and bring back out a laptop. She presses some of the keys till the machine beeps, and a little grey box pops up. She clicks one of the pictures, showing a pretty attractive looking guy with longer brown hair, though not as long as Sammy's, a red shirt with long grey sleeves, one of those necklaces that look almost hand made with a red and white design. He looked like he was in the middle of laughing when the picture was taken.
"That's Tommy." Haley informs them. Dean, Sam, and Marishka were huddled around her, looking at the screen over her shoulders, "This is his last message." She switches the slide to the beginning of the video and hits play.
"Hey Haley. Day six. We're still out near Black Water Ridge." He had a very boyish voice, but still too low to be mistaken for some pubescent teen, "We're fine, keeping safe, so don't worry, okay? Talk to you tomorrow." Marishka's brow furrowed, something catching her eye as the video played.
"'Well, we'll find your brother. We're heading out to Black Water Ridge first thing." Dean tells her.
"Then maybe I'll see you there." She replies, stepping past him. The trio share a glance that she must have seen, "Look, I can't sit around here anymore, so I hired a guide. I'm heading out in the morning, and I'm gonna find Tommy myself."
Dean's eyes glittered, "I think I know how you feel."
"Hey," Marishka looked up at Haley, "You mind forwarding these to me?"
"Sure." She nodded.
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The had settles in to some cheap bar with loud rock music and the sound of balls hitting each other from pool tables and clinking glasses filling the room. It was a little too cliche man cave for Marishka's taste, but of course her and Sam let Dean pick since he was driving. The waitresses were of course dressed in low cut tank tops and skimpy shorts, some sports game playing in the background, and of course the heavy smell of alcohol. Marishka was sitting with her laptop in front of her.
"So, Blackwater Ridge doesn't get a lot of traffic, local campers mostly. But still, this past April two hikers went missing out there. They were never found." Marishka informed her brothers, pulling out a leather book with old records inside.
"Any before that?" Dean asked, sounding uninterested mostly.
"Yeah, in 1982, eight different people all vanished in the same year. authorities are saying it's a grizzly attack." She pulled out a newspaper with Grizzly Bear Attacks! printed in loud, bold letters at the top of it, "Again in 1959, and again before that in 1936. Every 23 years." She turned her laptop to face her brothers, the video that Haley showed them paused on it.