𝐃𝐎𝐍𝐎𝐕𝐀𝐍

𝐓𝐖𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐘-𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐄𝐄

"He had a tattoo?"

The young woman's dark lashes tangle with the feathery tips of her sandy blonde fringe as she lifts her gaze from her papers to acknowledge the owner of the voice; a teenaged girl, rather prim-looking, stands before her with her blonde hair pulled back into a low ponytail.

"Yeah," Katherine answers.

The other girl looks to her father. "Yeah, you remember? They were just married." Katherine nods, looking back to Harley Jorgeson, local everything-you-need store owner. "How do you know 'em?"

"He's my brother," the huntress replies.

"I do remember him," Harley says, nodding, and hands the flyer back to Katherine. "They weren't here for long, though. Their car had a problem, I think. They grabbed some food for the road and they were on their way."

"Anything else?"

"I told them how to get back to the interstate," Harley says with a shrug, shoving his hands into his khaki pockets.

"Where'd you point them to?"

Within minutes, Katherine is cruising the interstate that passes through the outskirts of this dinky Indiana town named Burkitsville. She shudders at the horrid name.

Any town that ends in '—ville' is bound to be strange.

Amityville, for one.

The EMF detector taped to the dash begins to buzz at a high pitch, effectively stealing the girl's attention from the vacant, freshly-paved road.

"Bingo."

She pulls off of the road, staring out at the grove of trees just beginning to sprout their early spring leaves, and rips the reader from the dash before wading the duct tape up and tossing it to the side. From the trunk, she grabs her beretta and her baseball bat and starts on her way.

She thinks about the Winchesters. She hasn't heard from them in a few days. Not since Dean called that night, anyway, when they were in Illinois. Perhaps they think she's still with Sophia. She did say it would be a few days more. So she's taking her time. Mostly to prepare herself, mentally, for facing Dean after Sophia's thought-provoking statements and observations.

Damn Sophia for screwing it up.

The EMF meter, tucked into Katherine's back pocket, doesn't settle as she walks through the grove, bat slung over her shoulders as she gazes around at the rather healthy-looking trees. Her gut, having never failed her before, tells her something is off.

The crates of apples shouldn't be so full this time of year. So red. So abundant. Growing up, she never liked the red apples. Too mushy.

The crates are pristinely arranged, as if they were...placed. Styled.

With a sigh, she crouches before a crate and picks an apple up, tosses it into the air. It looks real, feels real. She pulls a knife from her pocket and cuts into the flesh before prodding it with the tip of her finger.

Definitely mushy.

Apple trees in the south don't bloom until mid-April at the earliest. It's the second week of it. But the trees here usually don't bloom until mid-May.

Upon inspection of the leaves, she finds no holes. No evidence of bugs around this place. Again—too clean to be nature itself.

With a sigh, the huntress looks up; her eyebrows disappear into her fringe as she rises to her feet, her gaze on a peculiar depiction of a popular field staple. This one has a creepy twist. Very Goosebumps.