September 2, 2031

Valley City, North Dakota

Dean Winchester hastily opened his Impala's trunk and he and his not so little brother Sam, leaned forward to grab two machetes that lay inside of it. They pulled the weapons out of their sheaths and threw the covers back into the trunk before Dean slammed it shut.

"You ready?" Dean asked.

Sam nodded. "Let's go."

Together, the brothers headed into the remote part of Valley City where abandoned buildings ruled. It was also where seven people over the course of one and a half weeks had gone missing. Only one of those people that had disappeared had turned back up. He had been found by the police three days ago dead under a tree. There hadn't been any fingerprints on the body or any other evidence except for bite marks on the neck. As soon as Sam and Dean had seen the story on the news they'd known it was vampires.

Dean and Sam hadn't heard of vampires in over two years. The species was nearly extinct; the vampire hunters having done their jobs well. Also, the vampires were being more careful and were usually on the run. They were acutely aware of how close their species was to ceasing to exist. They rarely made themselves noticed and Sam and Dean had a theory about why they were risking themselves now.

The vampires were changing their victims. They fed on them and then dripped their blood into their victim's blood and turned them into the monsters they were. It was the vampires' attempt to save their breed since they could not reproduce like some other creatures, animals, and humans. It also prevented anyone from finding evidence (bodies) in less the vampires accidently drained the people they attacked before giving them their blood.

Which was most likely the case with the thirty year old man who'd been in the news. It was what had drawn the attention of the Winchesters, and what would end the victim's killer and whatever other vampires that were with it.

As Sam and Dean trudged around the old broken buildings they craned their necks to look back and forth to search for any signs of the vampires or the people they'd captured.

Their path through the area was lit up by their flashlights, the stars, and the moon that was in the western part of the sky. It was three am.

It was also quiet, too quiet. So quiet that when a coyote suddenly howled in the distance Dean and Sam flinched. They glanced at each other with slight embarrassment over being so nervous and amusement that their brother had tensed up too.

They recovered quickly and listened as something tiny, probably a squirrel, scampered through a bush.

Then they heard the sound of a woman crying.

At first Sam and Dean weren't sure if it was what they were hearing or just simply the wind, so they squinted as they tried to focus their hearing on the sound.

It was indeed a woman. She was sobbing. The sounds were coming from behind an old brick house. Dean and Sam looked at each other and read each other's minds by their facial expressions. Neither one were sure if it would be a trap or not, but they were going to check things out anyways because it may be an innocent. She could be injured.

Dean led the way to the back of the building with his machete in front of him. He kept his eyes on the ball, the direction the sobbing was coming from.

He couldn't see anyone so he knew that the person wasn't right on the side of the back wall. She was probably hiding, from the vampires or them Dean did not know, but he hoped it was the former. He hated surprises.

When Dean and Sam turned the corner they spotted the woman curled up in a ball on the pavement. She was forty, dark haired, and her skin was olive colored. She was slightly overweight, but not quite the size to be called fat. She was pretty, from what the brothers could see of her face.

Sam shuffled a little and the woman looked up. Her weeping hazel eyes focused on Dean's face and she shrieked. "Please don't hurt me! Please don't hurt me!"

She shielded her face with her arms.

"We're not here to hurt you," Sam reassured her as he moved closer. "We're here to save you."

The woman looked up. "How can I believe you? You're holding machetes!"

"It's for protection against whoever's running around here," Sam explained.

"The man and woman that attacked me, you mean?"

"You've been attacked?" Dean frowned.

The woman gave him a nod and shivered.

"Did they bite you? Give you any blood?"

The woman stared at him strangely, as if he was an alien specimen. "What?"

"Just answer the question," Dean ordered.

"No…not as far as I remember, why?"

"Just wanted to know," Dean replied.

He wasn't about to tell her the truth. They'd never get her out of the place if he did.

Sam held out his hand to the woman and she hesitantly grabbed it. As Sam helped her up onto her feet her eyes widened, she gasped, and her knees buckled.

"She's fainted," Sam stated as he held up the woman by her arms.

"No shit, Sherlock," Dean rolled his eyes. "Pick her up and let's get her out of here."

Dean grabbed Sam's machete from him and began walking away.

Sam huffed before bringing one hand down to the woman's knees to scoop her up into his arms. Once he'd done that, Sam followed his brother back to where they'd parked the Impala.

While they were on their way the woman became conscious, but she was still out of it.

"Oh, my head is pounding," she moaned as she rubbed her temples.

When she realized she was being carried she freaked. "Why the Hell are you carrying me? Who are you?"

"I'm Sam."

"Well put me down Sam!"

Sam did as told, but the woman could not stand. He had to quickly grab her arms again as she leaned sideways.

"I'm so weak," the woman said as she laid her head on Sam's muscular shoulder.

The woman sniffed his neck.

"I'm so thirsty. You smell so good," she spoke drunkenly.

Dean whipped around at those words to look at Sam and the woman. Sam froze.

Oh crap, he thought.

The woman hissed and snarled as two rows of vampire teeth forced their way out of her gums.

Sam instantly threw her to the ground and leaped to his brother's side to take his machete back. Dean then charged towards the vampire woman with his machete at ready.

The vampire shot away from them and in a split second, disappeared behind a building.

"Dammit!" Dean cursed.

Sam starred at him, still shaken by his close call.

"Come on Sam; we gotta go after her," Dean told him.

Dean dashed after the vampire and Sam was on his heels.

Dean noticed the shoeprints the woman was leaving in the mud caused by a recent rain so he followed the trail into the woods.

A rabbit bolted out of a bush as the brothers passed and bounded deeper into the forest to the right of them in fear.

Sam and Dean jogged for what seemed like ages but it was probably only three minutes. They slowed, gasping for air.

"I'm getting to old for this crap," Dean wheezed as he bent over to put his hands on his knees in further attempt to catch his breath.

Sam grinned and then coughed because of the dryness in his burning throat.

After several more seconds Dean stood straight again and continued to follow the trail of the newly turned woman at a walk as Sam flanked him.

The prints led them to a huge cabin like camp in the middle of the woods. There were no lights on but Sam and Dean both knew that there was somebody home.

They approached the house cautiously and Dean peeked into the front windows. Nobody seemed to be hiding in the shadows anywhere near the front door so Dean gave Sam the okay.

Sam twisted the door handle and pushed. The camp's door swung inward, creaking as it went, and Sam stepped inside. Dean quickly followed.

Dean and Sam moved through the cabin carefully but they found nobody. No vampires or people. But they were surely here. The woman's shoe prints had ended at the porch steps.

As morning broke Sam and Dean walked into the dining room and found their answer.

There was a hole in the floor. A passage way to something that was below the surface. Dean and Sam starred at each other.

"I'm not going first," they protested in unison.

"Rock, paper, scissors?" Sam suggested innocently.

Dean narrowed his eyes. "No way; you always win."

Sam snorted. "You just have to choose something else besides scissors."

"You're going," Dean persisted.

Sam rolled his eyes. "Fine."

Sam kneeled to peer into the hole to see how far down the ground was. Eight feet, he judged.

Sam then jumped in, and tripped on a bale of straw. He groaned as he nearly fell on his face.

"You okay?" Dean questioned.

"Shhhhh!"

Dean hopped into the hole too.

When he landed he whispered, "What is it, Sammy?"

Then he saw them. There were three vampires sleeping side by side with their heads up against some bales of straw.

The owner of the camp must have been planning on reseeding that balding lawn outside in the spring, Dean thought musingly.

As his eyes adjusted he saw that the new vampire they'd followed was one of the vampires sleeping. The others were a scarlet haired female and a blonde male.

Sam nudged Dean's arm with his elbow and Dean turned slightly to look at him. Sam pointed towards the other side of the room.

Five people, three women between the ages of twenty and thirty-six and two males in that same age range were lined up against the wall tied up and gagged. Their eyes were sunken in and they were malnourished.

Dean realized two of them, both women, were already dead, frozen, starring at him. It made his skin crawl.

Sam walked over to the only woman left still alive, an African American. She watched him, subdued, as he checked her body for vampire bites with his flashlight. He found none. Sam put his index finger to his lips and the woman nodded slowly in understanding.

Sam lifted the handkerchief out of her mouth and dropped it onto the floor.

"Thank you," the woman mouthed.

Sam gave her a nod and began untying her.

Dean glanced nervously at the sleeping monsters to his right. He prayed they wouldn't wake until their victims were free.

He noted that there was a door to the outside ahead and walked over to Sam to point it out.

Sam acknowledged it and helped the woman he had just untied up to her feet. He then began helping the two men, one Caucasian and one Latin American out.

The woman he'd freed looked to Dean and he pointed at the door. The woman nodded and hesitantly made her way past her kidnappers towards the door. She pulled it open and bolted outside.

The door slammed shut, and the vampires startled awake.

"Son of a bitch. Sam hurry up!" Dean shouted as the vampires stood up snarling.

They weren't too happy to see intruders in their nest.

Dean grimaced and shot a look at Sam.

Sam had freed the two men and they were running for the door.

The three vampires ignored them. They were too furious to take their eyes off the Winchesters.

They attacked, knocking Dean to the ground so quickly he had no time to react and he let go of his machete to punch the two female vampires on him. The male headed for Sam.

The two men, hunter and vampire, faced off by circling each other. Sam could see that the vampire wanted to maul him so badly but knew the chances of getting killed by the weapon he was holding was high. He could beat this creature. It wouldn't be long before lust for blood would take over the vampire's sense and he'd charge. Sam would be ready.

It was Dean he was worried about.

Dean was still on the ground but not for long. He managed to push the two vampire women off of him and make a dash for his machete.

When he turned, the first vampire they'd met that night was practically in his face. Dean could feel her breath on his skin. The smell of the blood on her breath filled his nostrils.

Dean moved backwards a little and swung his machete at the vampire's neck. Blood spattered onto the nearest wall and his clothes.

The red headed vampire shrieked at the sight of her "sister's" head and bodying falling to the floor separately.

She glared at Dean and attacked him almost simultaneously with the male vampire attacking Sam.

Both Winchesters collapsed to the floor. It was not a good start to the new day.

Sam and Dean rolled out of the way of the vampires after them and started to get up at the same time as their enemies. The blonde male pounded on Sam and the female clawed at Dean's face.

Dean pushed the red head away from him and stood, but not fast enough. By the time he was up he could not do anything else. The vampire he was fighting shoved him into the concert wall and he slid to the ground dizzy.

The blonde vampire grabbed Sam's machete off the floor and began swiping it at him. He came dangerously close to gutting Sam and then sliced his right arm.

Sam's eyes narrowed as he winced in pain. It gave the vampire a chance to knee him in the stomach and Sam fell down.

As he did, the blonde vampire did too, in two pieces. His head rolled up to Sam's feet and his body landed not far off.

There was a man behind him in blue jeans and a jacket of the same color.

He moved too fast for Sam to see his face. He was running towards the red headed vampire who was lifting a disorientated Dean forcefully to his feet. It was too dark in that windowless corner to see any details of any of their faces.

The man who'd saved him elbowed the female vampire in the head and she twisted around to punch his jaw.

He pushed her to the wall to the left of Dean's slumped body and swung his bloody machete at her quickly.

In less than three seconds she was on the floor and in the same shape as the other two vampires in her coven.

Dean's vision cleared up and he saw that the man who'd saved him wasn't his brother. He had dark spiky hair and was too short to be Sam. The man was between two windows were no early morning light could shine onto his face so neither he nor Sam could make out the details of his face...

Until they stood up slowly and the man took a step towards Dean, a step into the path of light shining into one of the small windows.

Sam's eyes widened.

Dean gasped. "Castiel?"