When will we find him?

  Sam looked through the window, observing Lake Manitoc, a small county in Wisconsin, while ruminating on his frustration.

  He did not want to work on this case.

  An obscure 80’s rock was playing on the stereo, a love ballad with some harsh vocals from time to time.

  It was not very good, but he found it an oddly familiar sound, he was not sure weather because he found most 80’s rock to sound the same or because he had heard it before, but seeing as how Dean was beating his hands on the Steering Wheel to the rhythm, he was willing to bet this was one of the songs Dad used to play on the car while they moved from city to city for his hunts.

  Dean was more sentimental than he was willing to admit, and Sam knew that he especially valued anything that had to do with their father, so this song must be one of those precious things.

  Where are you, Dad?

  At first, they had a trail to follow, but now it was growing colder by the day, and he couldn’t find any leads. The only thing left was his journal, and Dean thought that the best thing for them was to work on cases as they searched for Dad, and he reluctantly agreed.

  His feelings for the man were complicated at best, and sometimes he wondered if he actually hated his father.

  He still remembered their last fight, the look of wounded anger on John Winchester’s face, his own impotent rage that he vented on the door of that cheap motel, Dean’s voice as he followed him to convince him not to leave, everything came back to him like a punch in the face ever since that night.

  Now the man vanished, leaving no signs, almost as if…

  He’s dead

  He could picture his father’s corpse in a dark alley in a random town, decomposing as they wasted time in Lake Manitoc, or maybe there wouldn’t even be a corpse; it all depended on what got him.

  In the first days, he could still keep these thoughts under the surface, but as days turned into weeks, it grew too big for him to ignore, and now they came and went at their own leisure.

  Dead, just like Jess.

  He saw a blonde woman walking on the sidewalk at the end of the street. He could only see her back, covered by her silky golden hair that rustled as the cars passed her. He couldn’t make out her face, but he was already seeing Jessica on her.

  Then he was in his bedroom again, tired after a successful hunt, thinking about exams and other meaningless things, still concerned with becoming a lawyer.

  He felt something wet falling on his face. Is it raining? Do we have a leek? He was only allowed a second of these naive thoughts before he opened his eyes and saw Jess bleeding on the ceiling, and the fire, oh god, the fire!

  She screamed as the flames consumed her flesh, and he screamed with her, feeling powerless to save her.

  Dean dragged him outside, like the good brother he wanted to be, but part of him wanted to stay there in the fire, to burn with his love, to be free from this.

  How silly he had been; he didn’t deserve to die with her, not yet, at least. Not until the day he killed the thing that killed Jess, that killed mom.

  “Sing with me, Sammy!” Dean took him out of his reverie by turning up the volume and singing along with the vocalist what should be the chorus of the song, all while wearing a big old dumb smile on his face.

  At that moment, he hated him with all his heart, but hatred quickly gave place to a sad envy. He envied his brother's simple concerns. For Dean, it seemed that as long as he had a case to work with and a hot girl to accompany him from time to time, he would be fine.

  He, on the other hand? Would he ever be fine again?

  “What are our identities for this job?” Sam swallowed the resentment that was brewing inside and asked Dean as they passed by the blonde girl.

  She didn’t look like Jess at all.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  ***

  It was 10 AM when they knocked on the Carltons’ door.

  The girl who died recently was the youngest daughter of one Bill Carlton, a widowed, retired factory worker who also had a son named William.

  The one who opened the door was a scrawny young man with short black hair and sunken eyes ringed with black circles, whom he quickly identified as Will.

  “Hello, how can I help you?” Will Carlton looked warily at the two strangers who had appeared at his door.

  “I’m Agent Ford, and this is Agent Hamil. We’re from the Federal Wildlife, and would like to ask you a few questions.” Dean introduced them with experienced ease, and they showed their fake identities to Will, who didn’t suspect anything.

  They moved away from the house, and Sam had the opportunity to take a good look at the lake.

  Lake Manitoc was surrounded by tall vegetation and, for what he could see, at least 5 other houses, neighbors to the Carltons.

  The lake's waters were annoyingly turbid, perfect for hiding something. Their current theory was that some creature was living on this lake and taking a few snacks from time to time.

  “Can you tell me at what time your sister drowned, Mr. Carlton?”

  “Hum… It was around 8 AM when she jumped into the lake, and soon after, she went ‘missing’.” He noticed the pain in Will’s eyes; he should have been more careful with how he phrased his questions.

  “And did you notice anything unusual at the lake back then?” Dean chimed in.

  “Like what?”

  “Like a shadow, perhaps an unusual wave on the water’s surface.”

  Sam looked once again at the lake. According to the report, Sophie Carlton had been at the center of the lake when Bill Carlton saw her submerging and never coming up again. At 8 AM, the sun would already be illuminating the whole lake, and any anomaly should have been easy to observe.

  “Well,” Will looked in a certain direction, and they followed his gaze to see an old man by the lake, whom he assumed was Bill Carlton.

  “Maybe there was something there, but I’m not sure what it was; I wasn’t paying attention when it happened.”

  Will then showed a guilty look, and he could see him courageously holding back his tears, unwilling to cry in front of strangers.

  Maybe they were close.

  He found himself thinking about how he would feel if Dean died someday.

  This made him feel closer to Will.

  “Can we talk with your father?” Dean asked, not without kindness.

  “Please don’t,” Will moved to block them, “He has been through too much already, please let him grieve in peace.”

  Sam looked at Bill Carlton, a shell of a man who stood on a wooden platform by the shore. He looked almost ready to jump into the water and search for his daughter, and Sam thought that if Bill did that, he would respect the man more.

  Something about this silent and gradual suicide with no action annoyed him, and he felt an urge to confront the man. To tell him how pathetic and weak he was for this shameful display of sentimentality, love, he thought, required action; the fire burned her until her face was gone. If you didn’t do anything about it, Dead, just like Jess, did you truly love them?

  They were already on their way to talk with the Sheriff when the feeling died.

  ***

  “Anyway. All this won’t be a problem for much longer.” Sheriff Jake Devins response was a resigned shrug.

  Like most small county Sheriffs, Jake showed clear discomfort with the presence of Federal officers in his town. Something about the presence of “Big government” threatened the fragile hold on power they were used to yielding over their communities.

  If there was a problem, they thought, surely they could solve it themselves; there was no need to involve outsiders.

  So he had been awfully dismissive of the 3 “drowning” cases that happened this year, even when the bodies couldn’t be found.

  “What do you mean?” Dean reflexively asked.

  “Well, the dam of course.” Sam saw the doubt in his eyes; this was not a good sign. There was something that they should have known as “Federal Wildlife Service Officers”.

  “Oh yeah, there’s a leak.” Dean looked at him for a brief moment and tried to salvage their cover.

  “It’s falling apart, and the federal government won’t give us the money to repair it, so they opened the spillway,” he said that with somber resentment, and Sam found amusing how most of it was directed at them, “In another 6 months, there won’t be much of a lake, or a town for that mather, so even if there’s something there, it won’t be a problem for much longer.” The doubt intensified, but just as it looked like something might happen, they all heard a knock on the door, and someone entered the room.

  “Hey, sorry to interrupt.” She was a brunette, maybe in her Mid-20’s, with a pleasant face and an easy smile. She didn’t seem to have expected him and Dean to be in the room.

  “Gentlemen, this is my Daughter. Andrea, they are from the Wildlife Service.” Jake solved the mystery immediately.

  “I’m Dean.” He groaned internally as he saw Dean’s eyes shine for a moment as he went for a handshake.

  “Andrea Barr, nice to meet you.” She politely shook his hand, but her attention turned to her back.

  There was a small boy there, maybe around 8 years old. He didn’t even look at them and immediately left.

  “Lucas!” Andrea called for him, but the boy was already gone.

  “My grandson went through a lot.” Jake felt the need to explain to them. He seemed embarrassed, but mostly sad and concerned.

  There is a story here, he thought, the boy looked terrified of something.