Sammy

1. Hunting

Present Day - 1999

A shooting pain ripped through Dean's skull as he opened his eyes.  The bright Georgia sun was not the best wake-up call for someone with a hangover.  Not by a long shot.

He sat up and pressed his palms to his eyes, trying to alleviate the vertigo and the blinding hangover headache.  As soon as what felt like the worst of the pain had stopped, he turned his head to the giant wall of pictures, articles, and pieces of evidence that had accumulated over the past three months.  Last night had not been good.  He had spent too much time thinking back to the night before Sam was taken, how sudden it was, how he could have saved Sam's life if he hadn't fallen asleep, how angry their father was when Dean broke the news to him.  Thinking about it now brought about a new volley of the same beer-craving pain from last night.

He walked over to the wall and continued where he left off the night before.  There was strange activity going on in New Hope; all on the same date in the same place.  Dean had spent the last few months compiling all of this information and now he was going over everything one final time before heading to the old  battlefield tonight.  He wasn't exactly looking forward to this hunt.  According to the research, the bodies were buried in a mass grave, which meant a lot of digging and possibly a massive waste of time. 

Dean sighed and walked over to his bag to verify that he had everything he needed.  Salt, kerosene, book of matches, salt rounds, flashlight, and a crap load of other things that he probably wouldn't even need, provided that things went smoothly.  Then again, most things didn't go as swimmingly as Dean originally hoped.  Last time he thought a hunt would be easy, he barely got out alive and his father didn't even make it halfway.  That was three years ago and Dean had moved on all too quickly. 

Dean was meeting another hunter at the site today, some person named Benny from South Carolina.  He wasn't too thrilled about it, but he knew it would be for the better.  A hunt of this caliber, especially at Dean's age could be fatal and any hunter working this big a case would have needed some help.  In all honesty, however, Dean didn't care if he died hunting.  If he could die saving people, he would be at ease no matter where he ended up.  

He tried to convince himself that some help would be okay, but he wasn't buying it.  What were a couple hundreds of ghosts when he had been dealing with demons almost every day for the past seven years?  

***

It was close to nine and just starting to rain when Dean arrived at the cemetery.  Benny and some kid were already there, just.  The two hunters started setting up camp immediately, both being very cautious about where they set their things.  Dean knew as well as Benny did that it was unwise to be hunting with someone unfamiliar, but in this case, he needed any other hands he could get.  

It was nearly ten by the time the two men were finished and all that there was left to do was wait.  They set up a small campfire inside the salt ring and proceed to sit in silence.  Dean was the first to speak.

"How did you come across this?" Benny was startled at first, but then answered him in a deep southern voice.

"I was lookin' through the newspapers when I saw an old hunting partner of mine had died somewhere around here.  I went to go check out the area, see if anything was goin' on, and I found this.  The guy's journal said there had been stuff happenin' here since the Civil War days, all within the same 48 hours by the looks of it and all at night.  He went digging around about a year ago and that's where the diary lets off."  Dean took in all the information.  That combined with the information he had been collecting since he first found out about the hunt certified multiple ghosts and one nasty hunt.

"So what's the plan?" Dean asked.  He poked at the fire a little bit and added some more twigs and moss.

"Honestly brother, I have no idea," Benny smiled.  Dean let out a short laugh and muttered something under his breath.  It got quiet for a spell after that, until Dean asked about the kid Benny had with him.

"Oh, that boy's an apprentice," he said, gesturing to the skinny kid sitting on the other side of Benny.  "He's from this place or something that trains hunters.  They loan the boys out to other hunters to gain experience once they've done well enough in group hunts.  This one here's the second I've worked with, and from what it seems they're all pretty good, better than I was at their age."

"What about the girls?"

"They pick 'em up off the street, same as boys, but some people sell them to the place.  Boys get trained to hunt, who knows what those girls get trained to do.  I don't even know if they're trained at all.  Most of the times they're picked up for bait for some of the things that feed off some sort of emotion or needs a virgin."

"Huh, might have to check them out sometime.  I could use a hand every now and then.  Where they at?"

"Somewhere near Iow-did you hear that?"  Benny stopped talking and Dean put a hand on his gun.  A few seconds later, they heard it again.  There was a strange wail coming from the forest and slight shadows were darting across the front of trees.  That right there sealed Dean's worries about multiple ghosts. 

Benny and he shot up from their seats on the ground and looked at each other.  What do we do?  thought Dean as he and Benny looked back to the forest.  Should I run and shoot it?   Just then, Dean saw Benny charge forward to the shadows.  Running it is then.  Dean followed suit and started running to the forest, stopping to shoot at any shadows every few yards.  He took shelter in a salt ring Benny had set up about fifty yards from the campsite.  Dean continued shooting at the spirits and tried to think of a way to eradicate the ghosts.  He looked down for a brief moment and noticed the salt on the ground.  That'll do it.  Dean ran out of the salt circle and started heading back up to the fire.  He took the salt left over--thank heaven he and Benny had bought far too much for what they thought they needed--and started throwing it on the ground.  He barely coated anything before the salt ran out.  Okay, bad idea.   Regardless of his mistake, he picked up a stick poking out of the fire and prepared to set the salt patch on fire.

Just then, Benny came jogging up the side of a small hill.  "They're gone, Dean!" he yelled.  Dean brew out the burning branch and ran over to Benny.  

"How are they gone?" Dean asked incredulously, "we didn't even do anything?"

"I guess they fought themselves gone.  It's happened before, but not very often."  Dean sighed.   I guess that's good, then.  No one got hurt, no one died, and we didn't even have to do much of anything.  I might have to stick around Benny for a little while longer though.  I need to find out about that place in Iowa.