A/N : I haven't been around in a while, and I just had the urge to write something. Who knows if I'll finish it or not.

I don't own any of these characters and the place is made up (as far as I know). Don't sue me because I don't have anything worth taking.

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Only three hours after finishing a hunt and falling exhaustedly into bed, the Winchester brothers were awakened by Dean's cell phone. He rolled over to answer it, grumbling unintelligibly the whole four-minute conversation. He hung up and climbed out of bed.

"Get up," he ordered gruffly. "We're leaving."

Sam obediently crawled out of his warm covers and threw his things into the suitcase. He followed Dean out to the car and waited patiently while his brother woke up the motel manager to announce that they were leaving. After one quick stop at an all-night diner, the boys were back in the car and on their way.

"Where are we going?" Sam asked his brother as they took off down the road, speaking for the first time that day.

"To our next hunt," Dean responded vaguely.

"Really?" Sam snapped. "I hadn't guessed. Where are we going?"

"To Luitton, Oklahoma. Seems people have been experiencing some rather strange things there lately."
"Such as?"

"Cars driving around by themselves, animals going haywire, and retired people suddenly having more energy than their great-grandkids."

"Demonic possession, then?" Sam concluded.

"Sounds like it. I got the message from Ellen this morning; she asked us to go."

"Why would Ellen contact us? We didn't have a great relationship last time we spoke to her."

"Not sure," Dean said, shrugging. "All I know is that she sounded pretty frantic and begged us to help. I said we would."

"Couldn't we have had two more hours of sleep?"

Dean grinned. "You don't sleep, anyway, so why should you care?"

"Sometimes I really enjoy just laying in bed and not doing anything," Sam replied.

"No time like the present," Dean said with a smirk.

"You're pretty chipper for how early we got up. What is it that you're not telling me?"

Dean glanced over, looking hurt. "I'm telling you everything, Sammy. You know I wouldn't lie to you."

"Why don't I believe you?" Sam said slowly.

"Maybe because you're smart," Dean said. Then he reached over and turned the radio way up, effectively ending the conversation. Sam sighed and looked out the window.

The Winchesters' reception in Luitton was less enthusiastic than they'd hoped. No one wanted to talk to them. They couldn't even get a room in the local motel. They ended up getting stumbling into the cabin of an old woman. She told them she was leaving for a few days and they could stay at her place, as long as they watched out for her dog, Manny.

When asked why she was leaving, she said she had family business. When asked why she trusted them, she said it was "this thing she had". Not having any other options, they accepted her hospitality and got to work.

Their first day was basically useless. They found nothing in regard to the "strange" happenings that Ellen had told Dean about. They researched and tried to talk to people but still no one was cooperating, as though outsiders were the plague. Dejected and tired, they went back to the cabin to get some sleep. Dean fell asleep almost immediately. Sam tried, but failed. He tossed and turned and lay awake for a long time.

Just when he was about to succumb to the sleep, he heard Manny in the kitchen. The dog was barking incessantly. Since he couldn't sleep anyway, Sam got up to see what the stupid thing wanted. He walked down the dark hallway to the kitchen, where the dog was. Manny took no notice of him, but kept up his tirade, barking at the screen door. Sam expected to see a rabbit or a cat or even a burglar, but there was nothing there.

"Shut up, you stupid dog!" he snapped, jerking Manny back by his collar. The dog continued to squirm and bark and growl and Sam grew frustrated quickly. It was cold and he should at least be trying to sleep. Abruptly, the dog quieted down and merely whimpered, trying to snuggle into the small of Sam's back. The younger Winchester looked down, disgusted. "What the hell – dumb dog."

But then, his hunter instincts kicked in. Realising what might have caused a dog do behave like that, he glanced up to the door once more. A man stood there, clearly long dead, his eyes staring intently at Sam. When they made eye contact, he licked his lips hungrily and started to come through the door, walking slowly at his prey.

Sam normally wouldn't have panicked in this situation, but he was alone in a strange place and had absolutely no weapons. The brothers hadn't expected to find this sort of thing while on their case here and he didn't know why this man appeared to be sizing him up for a meal. He backed away immediately, called out loudly for his brother. The dog stopped moving behind him, and he fell backwards over it.

"Manny --" he began, stopping cold when he saw the dog was dead on the floor. He didn't know how that had happened, but he knew he needed to be somewhere else, and fast.

But by the time his mind registered that the dog was dead, the dead man was standing on top of him.

"Samuel," came the chilling whisper. "I want your heart . . ."

Sam backed up more, still on the floor. "Dean!" he shouted again.

"Uh uh uh," the man growled with an evil grin. "Let's not be calling brother dearest."

Suddenly, felt a cord wrap around his throat, rendering him unable to breathe, let alone call for Dean. While struggling for air, Sam vaguely felt an icy hand touch his chest. And what followed was the most horrific pain he had ever felt in his life. He tried to scream, but failed in even getting a breath. His lungs burned and agony lanced through his chest, warning him of oncoming death. Spots appeared in his vision. He willed himself to stay conscious, but ultimately the lack of air won out. His eyes rolled up in the back of his head; the last thing he remembered was feeling that death was much worse than he'd ever thought.

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Dean was having a wonderful dream involving two very hot women when the stupid dog woke him up. He considered getting up to throw it into a wall or something, but then he heard Sam roll out of bed and contented himself with staying under the warm covers. The dog stopped barking, and he smiled. He was just about asleep again when he heard his brother's alarmed voice, calling his name.

"Shut up, Sammy," he grumbled into his pillow, knowing there was no way the younger Winchester could have heard it.

But Sam called again, louder, and Dean shot out of bed when his brain registered the fear in his brother's voice. "Sam?" he called out.

He stopped only long enough to grab his gun and rounded the corner without slowing. The hallway seemed infinitely longer than usual, mostly because everything in the kitchen was now eerily silent. "Sam?" Dean called again.

Finally, he broke into the open room and gasped when he saw his little brother, unconscious or dead – he wasn't yet sure which one. An undead enemy of some sort seemed to be sucking the life out of the younger Winchester and a cord was already wrapped around Sam's throat. The dog was dead. Blood was pooling around the three forms on the floor.

"Get away from my brother, you stupid --" Dean interrupted himself with a well-placed shot that made the intruder scream his pain, giving Dean a psychotic look of anger, and disappearing through the door.

Dean dropped the gun and fell to his knees next to Sam, ripping the strangling cord away from his brother's neck. "Sammy?" he said, feeling for a pulse.

After an eternity of waiting, he felt the weak and irregular beat under his fingers, and sighed in relief. The rope had made an ugly bruise around Sam's neck, and Dean didn't even want to see what that ghostie had done to his chest. He was already alarmed by how cold Sam's skin was to the touch. Even his clothes were icy. But first, he needed to hear his brother's voice or at least see those eyes.

"Sam?" he said gently, cradling the youngest hunter in his arms. "Sammy, I need you to talk to me, okay?"

He felt a slight stirring under his hand and continued to coax Sam back to consciousness. He tried to ignore the blood, hoping it belonged to the dog and not to his brother. "Sammy, come on, okay?"

Sam's eyes fluttered once and then stopped.

"No, come on, look at me," Dean said quickly. "Wake up."

"Dean?" Sam choked out, without opening his eyes.

Dean breathed out another sigh of relief. "I'm here, buddy," he said. "Open your eyes. I need to see if you have a concussion."

"Didn't . . . hit . . . head," Sam weakly said.

"Open 'em up," Dean insisted.

With what seemed to be a great effort, Sam managed to get his eyes open. They were dulled but moving. "Dean," Sam began.

"Don't worry about anything, little brother," Dean said reassuringly. "We'll get you into that warm bed of yours and you'll feel better in no time."

"Twas . . . it?" Sam asked in a bit of a mumble, his eyes drooping closed again.

"Stay with me!" Dean snapped, unwilling to let his brother pass out. "I don't know yet what it was. I'll find out while you rest."

"Manny . . ."

"Is dead," Dean finished. "I think the ghostie killed him."

"Don't . . . think . . ." Sam trailed off again.

"We'll talk about it later, okay, Sammy? Come on; let's get you upstairs. Can you walk?"

"Sure," Sam said, his voice getting stronger. "Help . . . me up."

Dean got to his feet, then reached down and hauled Sam up. His brother groaned lightly, but didn't complain. They walked slowly together down that never ending hallway and into the bedroom. Sam collapsed on the bed and was out in less than a second.

The elder Winchester stood looking down at the sleeping form. "What happened down there, Sam?" he asked softly, not expecting an answer. Instead of going back to sleep, he sat down on his bed and watched Sam breathe. It looked somewhat painful and erratic. He finally mustered the guts to pull up Sam's shirt and look at the damage. Severe black and blue bruises covered Sam's chest around where his heart was. This didn't match anything he'd seen before, and he wondered what it could have been.

"It's okay, Sammy; I'm watching over you," he said as he covered up his brother and sat back to watch until morning.

Sam awoke to the smell of food. He hadn't eaten in a while, so the smell made his stomach growl and he tried to sit up. Pain shot through his chest and he fell back onto the bed, groaning with the effort. It was then that he remembered the events of the night before. His neck was sore; his chest was sore . . . but he was still alive, which came as a bit of a shock to someone who had assumed he was dying.

He took a few laboured breaths before attempting to sit up again, this time with more success. Clutching the wall as though it was his life support, he managed to drag his aching body down the hall, following his nose, hoping it was Dean making food and not the crazed dead man that tried to kill him. Why a dead man might be cooking escaped him at that moment, so he concluded it must be Dean.

And as he rounded the corner to the open kitchen, his eyes confirmed his conclusion. "Morning," he said, his voice coming out like a scratchy whisper.

Dean turned around and set down the eggs he was cooking. "Sit down, Sammy," he ordered nurturingly. "You shouldn't be walking around."

"Yes, Mother," Sam said like a sarcastically obedient child. "Actually, you don't even know if I should be walking around."

"I assume, from the fact that you were unconscious twice in two minutes, that your health is not at its best, and therefore you should relax until you get better."

"Thanks for that, Sherlock," Sam grumbled back. "Did you see that guy last night, or was it just me?"

"Oh, I saw him all right. He was doing something to you. Not sure what it was."

"And the dog?"

"Long dead. Its blood was everywhere and for a minute I thought it was yours."

Sam grimaced. "I was lying in a dead dog's blood? That's a cheery breakfast thought."

"At least I cleaned it up before you came out here. That way, you don't even have to look at it," Dean responded. "See how nice I'm being?"

"Yeah; it's creepy."

"So what happened?" Dean asked. "I know you got up when Manny started barking, but then it got quiet and loud and quiet again and I think most of the fun was over by the time I got there."

"Dog barked, I came out, dead man showed up at the door, dead man came through the door, said something about wanting my heart, dog died, cord wrapped itself around my throat, intense agony, and here I am."

"That's definitely the short version," Dean said. "What did he say about your heart?"

"That was the strange part," Sam said. "He called me by name and said he wanted my heart."

"I've never heard of that before."

"There's got to be a precedence for it. There always is."

"Not really, Sammy," Dean said with his characteristic cynicism. "There's a first time for everything."