Reckless and Brave

XXX. Zombie Zoo (Part I)

[Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things]

Dean drove down the road and huffed, "Come on, Sam, I'm begging you. This is stupid."

"Why?"

"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 even 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."

"Enlighten us, Sammy." Holly stated bluntly.

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

"Hmmm." Dean mumbled.

Holly crossed her arms. "Very convenient when you don't remember your mom."

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

Sam frowned between his siblings. "Look, man, Holly. No one asked you two 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 should. Take Holly too. Just drop me off, I'll hitch a ride, and I'll meet you two there tomorrow."

Holly scoffed. "Sure. I'd love to be stuck with a bunch of people making small talk until you show."

At the graveyard, Sam knelt before a headstone and dug into 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 and said, "I love you, Mom."

Dean and Holly were standing near another gravestone labeled, 'Loving Father'. Holly slowly walked over to a dying tree, followed by Dean. Dean noticed a perfect circle of dead grass surrounding a gravestone. Holly fingered the dead flowers and she and Dean shared a concerned look.

Dean took a card from a man in a suit and the two of them walked over to Sam. "Angela Mason. She was a student at the local college. Funeral was three days ago."

"And?"

"And?" Holly repeated. "You saw her grave. Everything was dead around it, forming a perfect circle. That doesn't strike you as weird?"

Sam shrugged. "Maybe the groundskeeper went a little aggro with the pesticide."

Dean shook his head. "No, I asked him, Holly asked him. No pesticide, no chemicals. Nobody can explain it."

"Okay, so what are you two thinking?"

Holly sighed. "Not sure. Unholy ground, maybe?"

"Un--"

"What? Is that so hard to believe? It something evil enough happened here, the ground could easily be poisoned."

"Remember the, the farm outside of Cedar Rapids?" Dean reminded his brother.

"Yeah, b--"

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

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

"So?"

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