The Stories We Tell Our Children

Chapter One

"They should be back by now." Dean parted the slats of the window blinds with two fingers and looked out over the road, listening for approaching cars. Everything was quiet and still, barely even a breeze rippling the grass outside. The hot orange tennis ball of the setting sun sent long smears of shadows streaking from the surrounding buildings and cars.

"They probably just got held up," came the answering voice from the next room. Dean shuddered, thinking of all the things that "held up" could mean in this case. He turned to face outside again, squinting into the last rays of sunlight. "What if they ran out of gas? What if they're stranded out there? Maybe I should go look."

"Dad, you're overreacting. I'm sure they're fine. They're just late is all." Ben padded in from the living room with his phone clutched in his hand. No sooner had he spoken than Dean heard the crunch of tires on the driveway outside. He turned to see Lisa's silver Honda Civic pulling smoothly into the driveway. "Go and finish setting the table, dinner'll be ready soon." He patted Ben's shoulder as he passed his son on his way into the kitchen. Warm, humid air rushed over him as he opened the side door and took a few steps into the driveway. He heard the car engine shut off, and Lisa slid out of the passenger side, circled back to open the trunk and started pulling out plastic grocery bags. The driver's side door opened and Ellie jumped out, both feet landing on the pavement. She ran the few steps to help her mom unload the trunk.

"How'd she do?" Dean asked, watching the two heads of identical dark brown curls bent over the open trunk. Lisa slammed it shut and they rounded the car with white plastic bags dangling from their clenched hands.

"Perfect, not even a missed turn signal." Lisa's smile was warm with pride.

"See, I'm a very responsible driver," Ellie chimed in, tilting her head toward the open garage. "And I'll be totally ready to get my license in two months." She smiled up at Dean, batting her eyelashes.

"Yeah, yeah, nice try Ells. Go put the car in the garage, then come inside and wash up." He took the grocery bags from his daughter's hand and leaned over to kiss the top of her head before putting an arm around Lisa and turning to go back inside.

Ellie started the ignition again and slowly pulled the Civic through the open garage door. As she slipped out and slammed the door she turned to face the far side of the shed, where a familiar silhouette was covered by a tarp. She took a few slow, reverent steps toward the Impala. She carefully lifted the corner of the tan dust cover to reveal a sleek chrome-colored fender. Her distorted reflection looked back at her from the glossy black hood. She slowly placed a hand on the smooth, cool surface, imagining the purr of the engine underneath. "Ellie!" Her mother's yell from inside the house startled her out of her reverie. "Come inside! Dinner's ready!" Ellie let the cover fall back over the Impala and quickly closed the garage door before heading back inside.

Back in the kitchen, the honey-colored wooden table was set with four places, and Dean was cutting up a rotisserie chicken he pulled from one of the grocery bags while Lisa tossed a salad together and Ben pulled the plastic lid off a container of mashed potatoes. Ellie went to the cabinet and rose up on her tiptoes to get four plates off the shelf. She set the stack next to Dean and he started dishing up the food. A few minutes later they were seated around the table, passing salt and pepper shakers and butter back and forth.

"Ellie, how's finals prep going?" Lisa asked, drizzling vinaigrette over her salad.

"Good," Ellie mumbled around a mouthful of chicken. She swallowed and continued, "This week is mostly review, then I have two finals on Tuesday of next week, two on Wednesday, and one on Thursday."

"How can you have six classes and only five finals?" Dean asked from across the table. "Well, I do have six, but the one on Friday is my band final, so all I have to do is play the clarinet for ten minutes. It'll be easy. Then just the end of the year band retreat that weekend and I'm officially an upperclassman."

"Did Rodney agree to give you this weekend off so you can study?" Lisa's eyebrows drew up in question.

Ellie nodded. "Yeah, I just have to pick up Sydney's shift tomorrow night and Will's on Thursday."

"Good," Lisa answered. "You know I love that you want to earn your own money Ellie, but this weekend you need to be studying, not waiting tables at the diner."

"And Ben, how about your finals?" Dean asked.

"I'll be done two days before Ellie." Ben said. "My computer class and P.E. don't have finals."

"I don't know why you have finals at all," Ellie said. "It's middle school, who cares?"

"That's true," Dean said, taking a swig from his glass of scotch.

"Dean!" Lisa said, swatting him on the arm. "School is always important."

"Right mom," Ben smiled down at his plate. "The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. That's definitely important."

"That's what they're teaching in schools these days?" Dean asked. Lisa shot him a glare. "Why can't they teach you useful stuff, like how to fix cars? Or how to do your taxes?"

Lisa's glare softened. "I'll give you that one." She gave Dean another playful swat. "Maybe if you had learned that in school you would be better at it," she said teasingly.

"Woman, I'll have you know that I am a respectable, fiscally responsible citizen of the state of Michigan." Dean said gravely.

There was a pause at the table before all four of them burst out laughing. Dean reached over and scooped a forkful of mashed potatoes off his wife's plate. She giggled as she pretended to push him away, and Ellie and Ben exchanged smiles and rolled their eyes at each other. Up and down the street, similar scenes were playing out at the dinner tables of families who looked just like them.

A few hours later the dishes were clean and put away, Ellie and Ben were finishing up homework and preparing for bed, and Dean was doing what he did every night, making a final round of the ground floor to make sure all the doors and windows were locked. He pulled the blinds aside and looked out across the street. All quiet, all peaceful, just like it had been every night for so long now, but he couldn't quite make himself trust it.

"You coming to bed?" Lisa said from the top of the stairs.

"Yeah, I'll be right up." Dean let the blinds slide back into place and walked from the kitchen into the living room, giving the window locks a quick once-over. No matter how many nights passed, he still couldn't let go of the idea that the one night he didn't check would be the night something went wrong.

Satisfied that the house was secure, Dean took a few steps closer to the living room fireplace and let his eyes wander across the framed photographs lined up on the white painted mantel. They were in chronological order: the first was from sixteen years ago, basically a lifetime, and showed the second time in his life Dean had worn a suit, the day he and Lisa were married. In the picture Lisa was laughing while her new husband kissed her cheek. Dean fingered the simple metal band around his finger as he smiled at the picture. Next to it were a few snapshots from their first year together: on a beach at their honeymoon, standing on the threshold of their first house. After that Lisa in a hospital bed holding a dark-haired baby girl, and not quite four years later a baby boy. The second half of the mantel was full of baseball games, birthdays, and barbecues, all with smiling, happy faces, and at the very end of the mantelpiece, a small wooden box.

Dean picked up the box and slowly opened the lid. He reached inside and lifted out the amulet Sam gave him for Christmas so many years ago. The metal was solid and cool in his hand, heavy with the weight of so many memories. Setting the open box back on the mantel, Dean closed his hand around the amulet, the black cord dangling from his hand as he paced back across the room.

"Cas, wherever you are, I hope you're okay." Dean mumbled under his breath. He tried not to think about where Sam still was after all this time. "Damnit, Cas. Almost twenty years, and here I am still praying like I think you're gonna answer one day. You stopped listening a long time ago, I bet. If you're even still alive." He huffed out his breath and scrubbed a hand over his eyes as he continued. "I made Sam a promise that I'd go live my happy normal life and forget about him. Well I'm here, and my life is pretty normal," he paused and let his gaze sweep over the photos again. "And, dare I say happy. But I can't forget Sam, or you, or Bobby, no matter how much I want to sometimes." Dean winced slightly at the stab of guilt of saying those words out loud. He didn't have a right to forget, but he almost felt he didn't have a right to remember either. It'd been so long since he was a hunter, sometimes it felt like someone else's life.

"I have a family now. But I had a family before, too. I just wish…" Dean paused again, searching for the right words. "I just wish I didn't have to trade one for the other." Dean walked back to the mantel, lowered the necklace back in, and shut the box. He turned and padded up the stairs to his and Lisa's bedroom.

A few state lines away, rock music blared from the rolled-down windows of a black Dodge Charger. The roads were mostly empty at this time of night, so there was no one to notice the car pushing the speed limit heading into the next state, or the lone man driving it.

Sam's cell phone buzzed in the seat next to him, Bobby's name flashing across the caller ID. He turned the music down a few notches, then flipped the phone open and pressed it to his ear. "Hey, Bobby, what's up?"

"Hey, kid," Bobby's voice crackled through the speaker. "I got something for you. Heard it over the police scanner. Four disappearances in the last two weeks, out of the blue. Cops found one torn to bits in the woods a few days later, but they're keeping it quiet; don't want to freak out the locals. Others are still missing."

"Sounds like our kind of thing," Sam replied. "What do you think, a shapeshifter? Or maybe a vamp? Not like them to leave evidence around, but…"

"Who knows with the monsters anymore, things are getting crazier by the day. Better go check it out though." Bobby said.

"Where is it?" Sam heard a pause and a shuffle of papers on the other end of the line.

"Battlecreek, Michigan."

"Okay, I'm about a night's drive south of there. Should be there by morning."

"Good, let me know what you find, kid."

"Sure thing." Sam said, clicking his phone shut and tossing back into the empty passenger seat. He turned the music back up and stepped on the gas pedal just as he crossed the state line into Indiana.