THE HAUNTED

HIGHWAY

am and Jess are back at their apartment, sleeping. They're sleeping back to back, and Jess shifts her position. A noise is heard, like a window opening. Sam hears the noise and exits his bedroom, looking for the source of the noise.

He notices that a window is open, earlier it was closed. Footsteps are heard as a man walks past the strings of beads at the far end of the hall.

Sam moves to another part of the apartment and waits. The man enters the room and Sam lunges forward and grabs him at the shoulder. The man knocks Sam's arm away and aims a strike at Sam, who ducks.

The man grabs Sam's arm, swings him around, and shoves him back. Sam kicks and it is blocked, and he pushes Sam back into another room. The Man elbows Sam in the face; Sam kicks at his head.

He ducks and swings and Sam blocks. The Man knocks Sam down and pins him to the floor, one hand at Sam's neck and the other holding Sam's wrist.

"Whoa, easy tiger." The man says.

Sam recognizes that voice. "Dean?" Dean starts to laugh. "You scared the crap out of me!" Sam yells.

"That's 'cause you're out of practice." Dean says. Sam grabs his hand and yanks, slamming his heel into Dean's back and knocks Dean to the floor. "Or not." Dean says. Sam taps Dean twice where Sam is holding him. "Get off of me." Dean says and Sam helps him up to his feet.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Sam asks.

Dean scoffs. "Well, I was looking for a beer." He puts his hands on Sam's shoulders and shakes him. Looking disturbed, Dean looks at Sam and let's go.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Sam asks more urgently this time.

"Okay, alright." Dean says defensively. "We gotta talk."

Sam looks over his shoulder. "Uh, the phone." He says.

"If I'd'a called, would you have picked up?" Dean asks and Sam realizes that he had a point.

A noise is heard once more and the lights suddenly turn on. Jess is standing there, wearing a Smurfs t-shirt and short shorts. Dean looks over at her amused. "Sam?" She asks groggily.

"Jess. Hey." Sam says and wraps his arm around her. "Dean, this is my girlfriend, Jessica." Dean looks at her up and down and Sam notices.

"Wait," She says. "Your brother Dean?" Sam nods and Jess smiles at the same time.

Dean also smiles and moves closer to his brother's girlfriend. "Oh, I love the Smurfs." He says and Jess looks at him like he's gone mad. "You know, I gotta tell you. You are completely out of my brother's league."

"Just let me put something on." Jess says awkwardly. She turns to go, but Dean stops her.

"No, no, no, I wouldn't dream of it. Seriously." Dean says. He goes back over to Sam without taking his eyes off Jess. Sam watches him, his expression stony. "Anyway," Dean says. "I gotta borrow your boyfriend here, talk about some private family business. But uh, nice meeting you."

"No." Sam says. "No, whatever you want to say, you can say it in front of her." He puts a protective arm around Jessica.

Dean turns to look at both of them. "Um, Dad hasn't been home in a few days." He says.

"So he's working overtime on a Miller Time Shift." Sam says nonchalantly. "He'll stumble back in sooner or later."

Dean ducks his head. "Dad's on a hunting trip. And he hasn't been home in a few days." He says, only the two of them knowing what this meant.

Sam's face stays blank as Jess looks up at him. "Jess, excuse us. We have to go outside." He says. He quickly put on his clothes and was now running down the stairs with Dean. "I mean, come on. You can't just break in, middle of the night, and expect me to hit the road with you."

Dean sighs. "You're not hearing me, Sammy. Dad's missing. I need you to help me find him." He says.

"You remember the poltergeist in Amherst? Or the Devil's Gates in Clifton? He was missing then, too. He's always missing, and he's always fine." Sam points out.

Dean stops and turns around, causing Sam to stop too. "Not for this long. Now are you gonna come with me or not?" He asks.

"I'm not."

"Why not?"

"I swore I was done with hunting. For good." Sam says.

Now aggravated, Dean speaks up. "Come on. It wasn't easy, but it wasn't that bad." He continues to walk downstairs and Sam follows.

"Yeah?" Sam challenges. "When I told Dad I was scared of the thing in my closet, he gave me a .45."

Dean stops at the front door. "Well, what was he supposed to do?" He asks.

"I was nine years old! He was supposed to say, don't be afraid of the dark." Sam argues.

"Don't be afraid of the dark? Are you kidding me? Of course you should be afraid of the dark. You know what's out there." Dean states.

Sam knew he had a point. "Yeah, I know, but still. The way we grew up, after Mom was killed, and Dad's obsession to find the thing that killed her." Dean glances away from his brother. "But we still haven't found the damn thing. So we kill everything we can find."

"We save a lot of people doing it too." Dean says.

Sam pauses. "You think Mom would have wanted this for us?" He asks.

Dean rolls his eyes and thrusts the front door open. They begin walking down the steps to the parking lot.

"The weapon training, and melting silver into bullets? Man, Dean, we were raised like warriors." Sam says. They cross the lot and end up by the Impala.

Dean turns to face his brother. "So what are you gonna do? You're just gonna live some normal, apple pie life? Is that it?" He asks.

"No. Not normal. Safe." Sam says.

"And that's why you ran away." Dean says.

"I was just going to college. It was Dad who said if I was gonna go, I should stay gone. And that's what I'm doing."

Dean ignored him. "Yeah, well, Dad's in real trouble right now. If he's not dead already. I can feel it." Sam stays quiet. "I can't do this alone."

"Yes you can."

Dean looks down. "Yeah, well, I don't want to." He says.

"What was he hunting?"

Dean opens the trunk of the Impala, then the spare-tire compartment. It's an arsenal. He props the compartment open with a shotgun and digs through the clutter. "All right, let's see, where the hell did I put that thing?" He says and begins shifting through the junk.

"So," Sam says. "When Dad left, why didn't you go with him?"

"I was working my own gig. This uh, voodoo thing, down in New Orleans." He replies. Sam could tell that his brother was torn up about this whole Dad thing.

Sam squints. "Dad let you go on a hunting trip by yourself?" He asks. Dean looked over at Sam.

"I'm twenty-six, dude." He pulls some papers out and examines them. "Alright, here we go. So Dad was checking out this two-lane blacktop just outside of Jericho, California. About a month ago, this guy."

Dean hands one of the papers to Sam. "They found his car, but he vanished. Completely MIA." He says.

The paper is a printout of an article from the Jericho Herald, headlined 'Centennial Highway Disappearance" and dated Sept. 19th 2005. It has a man's picture, captioned "Andrew Carey MISSING'. Sam reads it and glances up.

"So maybe he was kidnapped." Sam suggests.

"Yeah, well here's another one in April." Dean tosses him some more papers. "Another one in December 'oh-four, 'oh-three, 'ninety-eight, 'ninety-two, ten of them over the past twenty years." Dean takes the article back from Sam and picks up the rest of the stack, putting them back in the folder. "All men, all the same five mile stretch of road." He pulls a bag out of the trunk. "It started happening more and more, so Dad went to go dig around. That was about three weeks ago. I hadn't heard from him since, which is bad enough." He grabs a tape recorder. "Then I get this voice-mail yesterday." He said and press play. The voice is filled with static.

"Dean...something big is starting to happen...I need to try and figure out what's going on. It may... Be very careful, Dean. We're all in danger." John's voice says.

Dean presses stop. "You know there's EVP on that?" Sam asks.

"Not bad, Sammy. Kinda like riding a bike, isn't it?" Dean says and Sam shakes his head. "All right. I slowed the message down, I ran it through a gold wave, took out the hiss, and this is what I got." He played the message again.

"I can never go home." A woman says.

Dean stops it again. "Never go home." Sam repeats.

Dean drops the recorder, puts down the shotgun, stands straight, then shuts the trunk. He leans against the car. "You know, in almost two years I've never bothered you, never asked you for a thing." He says.

"Alright, I'll go. I'll help you find him." Sam sighs.

Dean nods. "But I have to get back first thing Monday." Sam says. "Just wait here." He heads back to the apartment.

"What's first thing Monday?" Dean asks.

"I have this...I have an interview." Sam says.

Dean smirks. "Law school?" He asks.

"So we got a deal?" Sam ignores. Dean says nothing, but Sam leaves anyway.

lena watched as Sam went back inside and got his things together. Dean still stood with his arms crossed leaning on his car. Maybe if she talked some since into this brother, maybe she could convince Sam he had to stay. He was in danger.

Sam had seen Elena at the bar, but he shoved her off before she could say anything. She didn't know how, but all she knew was that she had to follow him.

Without even thinking, she walks over to Dean and taps his shoulder. He turns to her quickly in a fighting stance. "Who are you?" He asks.

Elena stepped out of the shadows and Dean finally got a good look her. He put his arms down and eyed her.

"Oh," He says. "You're a girl."

Elena stepped up to him. "You can't leave." She urges.

"Look, girl." Dean says, pointing at her. "You're cute and all, but I don't have time for this."

"No, you don't understand." Elena says and pushes herself towards Dean. She holds onto his jacket and looks into his eyes. "You can't leave. Something is going to happen if you do."

am is seen packing a duffel bag. He pulls out a large hook-shaped knife and slides it inside. Jess comes into the room. "Wait, you're taking off?" Jess asks and Sam looks up. "Is this about your Dad? Is he alright?"

Sam turns to her. "Yeah. You know, just a little family drama." He goes to his dresser and turns on the lamp that sits on top.

"Your brother said he was on some kind of hunting trip." Jess says and sits down on their bed. Sam pulls out some clothes from the drawer and stuffs them in a duffel bag.

"Oh, yeah, he's just deer hunting up at the cabin, he's probably got Jim, Jack, and José along with him. I'm just going to go bring him back."

"What about the interview?" Jess asks.

"I'll make the interview." Sam says. "This is only for a couple of days."

Sam goes around the bed and Jess follows. "Sam, I mean, please." Jess pleads. "Just stop for a second. You sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine." He laughs.

"It's just...you won't even talk about your family. And now you're taking off in the middle of the night to spend a weekend with them? And with Monday coming up, which is kind of a huge deal." Says Jess.

Sam pulls her close. "Hey. Everything's going to be okay. I will be back in time, I promise." He kisses her on the forehead and leaves.

"At least tell me where you're going."

Even later, Sam goes outside to Dean's car and puts his things in the trunk. "Did she take it well?" Dean asks.

"What do you think?" He asks and gets in the passengers seat.

Dean started the engine and drove. "Do you know a girl named Elena by any chance?" He asks.

Sam looked at his skeptically. "No. Why?" He asks.

"She was just asking about you." Dean says. "It was weird."

Sam turned to his brother. "What did she say?" He asks.

"Nothing." Dean says and turns to drive. "Let's hit the hay."

he Eagles of Death Metal's "Speaking in Tongues" plays. A young man, Troy, is driving down the highway, talking on his cell phone.

"Amy, I can't come over tonight." He says. "Because I've got work in the morning, that's why. ...Yeah, okay, I miss it and my dad's gonna have my ass."

There's a high-pitched whine and Troy looks over to see a woman in a white dress on the side of the road. She's moving as though dancing; she flickers, and for a moment she's gone.

"Hey, ah, Amy, let me call you back?" Troy tries several times to turn off the radio, which is flickering. Nothing happens. Troy pulls up next to the Woman, whose dress is torn in several places, and stops, leaning across the shotgun seat.

"Car trouble or something?"

There's a long pause until the woman speaks. "Take me home?" It's the same voice from John's altered voicemail. Troy opens the passenger door.

"Sure, get in." The barefoot woman climbs in and closes the door. "So, where do you live?" Troy asks.

"At the end of Breckenridge Road." She says in monotone.

Troy nods. "You coming from a Halloween party or something?" The girl's dress is very low-cut. Troy notices, stares, and looks away, laughing nervously. "You know, a girl like you really shouldn't be alone out here."

She looks at him mournfully, seductively, and pulls her skirt up over her thigh. "I'm with you." Troy looks away. The Woman takes Troy's chin and turns his face towards her. "Do you think I'm pretty?"

Troy eyes her cleavage. "Uh...huh." He says

"Will you come home with me?" She asks.

"Um. Hell yeah." He drives off. They pull up to an old abandoned house at the end of a road. The woman stares at it sadly. "Come on. You don't live here." Troy says. He looks back at her.

"I can never go home." The woman says.

"What are you talking about? Nobody even lives here. Where do you live?" Troy turns, and she's gone. He checks the back seat, also empty. Nervous, he gets out of the car. "That's good. Joke's over, okay? You want me to leave?" Looking around, he realizes he's absolutely alone. He walks towards the house. "Hello? Hello?"

There's a dust covered picture inside the house. Troy peers through the hole in the screen door. A bird flies at his face, scaring him into falling over. He yells, leaps to his feet, and runs back to the car. He gets in and drives off.

Troy looks behind him, but no one is there. He looks into the rear view mirror again and the woman is in the back seat. Troy yells again and drives straight through a "Bridge Closed" sign, stopping about halfway across the bridge. He screams. Blood spatters the windows.