Chapter Text
Sunday, June 16th, 1996. New Moon.
The cabin for the counselors who were not heads of camper cabins was packed with belongings. Dean put his duffle on the only bunk without any sheets that sat closest to the door. He unzipped his bag and sighed at the motel bed sheets he had stollen just before they left. Dean took them out and made the bed before double checking his bag. He had packed a cylindrical container of salt, a couple of silver bullets, a pistol, a flashlight, a switchblade, clothes, and a few pieces of jewelry.
Dean put a silver ring on and took out one of the bracelets and the blade before burying the gun under his clothes. The bracelet was leather with a couple of small beads hanging around a Hamsa charm. Rufus had given the piece of jewelry to Dean the last time they saw each other. Dean remembered Rufus saying it would protect him. He had accepted the gift but thought it was all bullsh*t. Still, he put it on, tightening it on his right wrist.
He went to go find the Dogwood cabin to see if Sam needed help settling in. The camp was a huge site placed on the beginnings of an incline to a mountain. Dean had already peeked at the lake on their drive in as it was right next to the parking lot. At the base of the site were the main buildings: the cafeteria and the house where the staff worked. Cas had told Dean that if there were any injuries that the first aid kit could not fix, there was a nurse’s office and a doctor on call in the house. Dean had walked down from the activity area where the shooting range sat to the middle of the site. Different stations of activities were placed around a huge clear-cut field, which itself was placed at the highest part of the hill. In the middle of the site housed the cabins where he set his stuff down.
Dean walked from the small counselor cabin to the bigger camper cabin, passing a massive flagpole with an even bigger American flag waving in the wind.
He followed the sound of laughter to the Dogwood cabin, seeing Sam and another counselor walking towards him.
“Hey Dean.” Sam waved him down.
“You settled in?” He fell into stride with the other two.
“Yep! Gabe said others are gonna get here soon.”
The other counselor, Gabe, nodded. “Yeah. You must be Dean. I’m guessing you had the pleasure of getting a tour by my brother.”
“Cas is your brother?” Dean squinted. Gabe and Cas looked and acted nothing like the other, other than them being brunet.
“Oh yeah. If you got any questions, I suggest going to me before Cassie.”
“Noted.”
The three headed to the cafeteria just as cars started to pull into the lot.
***
“How’ve you been?” Charlie sat on the attached bathroom sink as he brushed his teeth.
“Peachy.” Dean spit his toothpaste out and walked out of the bathroom. “You?”
“About the same,” said Charlie hooping off the ledge and onto Dean’s bed. “Can’t wait to turn eighteen.”
“You got some major plans I don’t know about?” Dean sat next to her in the quiet cabin. The other counselors were not back yet, and Dean was getting ready to sweep the campsite to make sure there were no campers out when they should not be with Cas. Apparently, it was a new job the staff needed to do just to scope out any wildlife threats.
“I’ve already got a fake resume! Think I’ll go to the East coast and try my luck there with an IT job. How do you feel about the name ‘Annie Tolkien’?”
“Doesn’t sound too fake to me.”
“Sweet. But seriously, how’ve you been?”
“I’ve been alright. Dad’s been on my ass ever since… you remember that band I was telling you about when we first met?”
Charlie nodded. “Yeah, some Riot Grrrl band or something, right?”
“Yeah, 7 Year Bitch. Anyways, saw ‘em live in New York at this sh*tty dive bar. Got super drunk, like, started seein’ shapes n’ sh*t, and cussed out Dad. He’s been on my ass ever since, especially since Sammy ran away for, like, two weeks.”
“Geez. How’d he run away for that long?”
“Um… Well, I was kinda…” He trailed off, afraid that his father who was a state away would hear him. “I kinda got my GED.”
“What!” Charlie gave his shoulder a loving punch. “I f*ckin’ told you you’d get it!” Charlie had been the one to suggest that Dean should get his GED because of how much school was affecting his hunting. Of course, he would never phrase it that way, he needed to keep Charlie far from his life to keep her safe. He kept a mental note to keep Charlie and Sam protected until he kills these werewolves, along with all the other campers and staff.
“But don’t tell Sammy!” He put his hands up to try to calm her down. “He doesn’t know and doesn’t need to. My dad doesn’t know either, Christ.”
Charlie mimed zipping her mouth shut, then unzipped it to speak. “What else you got for me?”
“Um…” Dean thought about everything that had happened in his personal life from the past three years. All he got in return were flashes of hunts. “Did my first solo job on my birthday this year.”
Charlie deflated. “Come on! That’s work stuff, gimme you stuff!”
What was he supposed to say? Dean had succeeded in going to that show and had paid a heavy price for it. He learned his lesson to not have any desires or dreams outside of the mission. “Kissed my first boy.”
“Get out!” Charlie jumped up from his bed.
There was no need to tell Charlie that he had not liked the boy, and only did it to prove his theory right. Dean had stuck his tongue in the kid’s mouth and traced his teeth with it. He had let his tongue explore more of that mouth, finding a secret set of teeth hiding in the boy’s gums. Dean promptly decapitated the vampire after that.
***
Crickets chirped in the nearby woods of the grounds, creating a lull of noise in the open areas. Dean followed Cas as they walked up and down the property with flashlights, checking to make sure all the campers could be accounted for, and no wildlife would be eating anyone else.
The evening fog rolled in over the hills, making it harder to see. The light of the flashlights turned an opaque white as the fog became more tangible. Dean looked out onto the campgrounds checking for any signs of monsters. What he found instead was that the flag was at half-mast. “Hey Cas, d’you move the flag?”
“No…” he responded. “Must have been someone else. Let’s go fix it.”
Dean shrugged, “Alright.” The two walked down the hill and headed to the flagpole. As he got closer, Dean saw the American flag moving in the slight breeze: it was upside-down.
“I’ll lower it,” said Cas, “Can you fold it?”
“Yeah… I got it…”
Cas started to pull on the rope, lowering the flag to Dean’s height. He reached up and folded the flag into triangles.
When he took it off the pole, Dean hesitated before asking, “Um… Cas?”
“We can put the flag in the main house.”
“I was actually gonna ask… is this place, like, super redneck?”
Cas tilted his head to the side as the two walked through the dew.
“I mean, the flag was upside-down is all. Just wondering.”
“By redneck, do you mean conservative?”
“Kinda. It’s just, I’ve only ever seen upside-down Americans flags in front of houses that are super into the whole ‘deep state’ thing. I mean, my Dad’s always said it means rebellion or a distress signal, but I’ve seen it a lot in the South from some people.”
Cas hummed in acknowledgement. “A flag at half-mast also means something tragic has happened. Like death.”
“Yeah… D’you known about the recent counselor deaths happening here?”
Cas nodded while watching where he stepped. “I only knew Benny.”
“Was there anything strange that happened before he died?” Dean did not want to sound needy for information, but he figured Cas was strange enough to not think this was a weird conversation. “Did he act or say weird sh*t?”
“All he did was say he was going to the lake for a smoke… He also would steal alcohol bottles from the main house, and I think he did not just smoke nicotine.”
Dean nodded as the two walked up the wooden steps. He handed Cas the flag, who placed it inside on a bench. “Was it kinda cold that day? Did you smell anything weird?”
“No,” said Cas. Dean could not tell if the boy was either being brutally truthful or trying to shut Dean down. Either way, he took the hint and stopped asking Cas questions.
***
At around one in the morning, Dean snuck out of the cabin. From the dirt he tried to dig up on the adult staff from his little time with Charlie, he knew only two members of the staff would sleep on site in the main building.
Dean crept through the camp with a flashlight in hand. He had read Sam’s diligent report before they left the motel and knew the main house had files of all their camp counselors. The police, ever negligent, had just examined the files and did not take them.
Getting into the house was easy as the windows had no screens. Dean flipped open his switchblade and shimmied a lock open. He eased his way through the window and found himself in a bathroom.
It looked worn in and smelled of lemon cleaner. Dean turned his flashlight off and tip-toed out of the bathroom and into a hallway. Four closed doors lined the walls of the log cabin-like home. He tried the first door, gently turning the knob and praying the bedrooms were on the second floor. Dean peeked his head in to see a make-shift nurse’s office. A medical examination bed stood sterile in the middle of the room and a sink and cabinets across the wall. He shut the door making sure the hinges would not squeak and tried the next room.
Dean opened the next door and had to stifle a sigh of relief. He had found the office. Dean closed the door behind him and walked behind a desk that housed a computer. His plan was to open every drawer of the desk hoping to find the files, but he had found something better: a metal filing cabinet under the desk. Now that housed secrets. Dean rolled the desk chair to the side, bending down to open the filing cabinet. He pulled, but it did not give way. Obviously, something housing important secrets would be locked.
If I were a key, he thought, where would I be? He went to open the desk drawer closest to the filing cabinet but had to stop immediately because of the loud shrill squeak that emanated from the drawer. Nope, f*ck that. Dean poked his head up from his crouched position. He saw the sparce amount of stationary present on the desk, which consisted of a stapler, a cup with pens, and a little shot glass of paper clips. Dean grabbed a paper clip, unwound it, and jammed it into the cabinet lock.
He opened the drawer with ease, finding the motherload of organized files. He found a section labeled “Counselors” and flipped through the names he recognized from Sam’s report.
A victim named Lily Baker who had been found in the woods was the first name that got Dean’s attention. She had been sneaking out of the camp and had been seemingly taken into the woods and eaten by a “hungry bear.” Dean’s eyes skimmed over the note of how she had come to the camp as a child and wanted nothing more than to give other kids a great experience at camp just like she had had.
Andrew May was the second victim who had been eaten. Dean read he was rambunctious and most of the campers’ favorite. The police had found that his repeated energetic outbursts were apparently caused by cocaine.
The third was a girl named Tasha Anderson, and she had also been eaten by a “hungry bear or wolf.” Her file said she had kept to herself yet could talk campers down from panic attacks about being away from their parents. Dean read she had been in a relationship with another counselor who was killed. The name of the other counselor was scratched out, but he could tell it was a short enough name to say “Lily.”
The most recent victim, Benjamin Foster, had looked mauled to death before partially eaten. His file showed how he would steal alcohol from the secret stash in this building, and how great he was with younger campers.
“These werewolves have been hunting naughty kids,” Dean whispered to himself. He turned his attention from the victims’ files and onto the current councilors’. He skipped Charlie’s as she could not possibly hide being a werewolf from him. He flipped through more files of the current counselors and cross-referenced their hiring periods with those of the victim’s. Dean found one named “Gabriel Novak” and peeked. The notes on his file were eerily like Andrew’s, save for the drugs. He was tricky and difficult to manage from a staff perspective and kids absolutely adored him. Sam would be safe enough under his watch when Dean could not be around.
He checked a file named “Joanna Harvelle.” She was one of the heads for the younger camper’s cabin, splitting the duty with someone else due to also overseeing the archery station.
Dean grabbed one for someone named “Asher Dylan.” He flipped through it, seeing notes about how brilliant the kid is and to never leave him alone in a room with a computer.
He spent minutes trying to find anything that stood out to him when he finally came across a file named “Castiel Novak.” All the other files had a note or two from a staff member documenting a flaw in their work ethic, except his. Castiel Novak was clean as a whistle.
He shut the filing cabinet drawer and stood up just to crouch back down after hearing the creak of floorboards above him.
The creaks only intensified, moving from above him on the second floor down a set of stairs. Dean ducked under the desk and pulled the chair close, making sure to keep his breathing steady.
Dean felt his heart beat fast in his ears as footsteps got louder as they approached the door to the office. He stayed perfectly still and listened as a door close to him opened. Dean was fully prepared to come up with a story on the fly of why the hell he was here and how he had gotten into the house when the footsteps muffled: the door to the office had not been opened.
He heard a flush come from the toilet and the sink turned on. Thank God he had closed the window behind him. The footsteps got louder, then softer as the person walked up the stairs. Dean stayed glued under the desk for what felt like eons, hoping that that person had fallen right back asleep.
He finally had the courage to get up, and tip-toed out of the office and into the bathroom. The smell of lemons came and went as he climbed out of the window.
