Title: One Of These Nights
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG13
Length: 2900
Content notes: Canon-level language. Set in a vaguely first season timeframe, after "Route 666".
Author notes: For fan_flashworks Challenge #8, "Genre". It amazes me how easy it is for Sam and Dean to find the grave of whatever ghost they're hunting. Tombstones are always readable, graves are never covered in eight-foot weeds and nests of snakes, and cemeteries are always listed on a map where all the roads are well-kept. Clearly they've never hunted in my neck of the woods, where my mother found our 'family' graveyard up the mountain just last week, after ten years of searching. Welcome to an actual 'small town' hunt, Winchester boys.
Summary: This is not going to be an easy hunt.



It was still three hours to sundown, but in the thick woods it could have been past midnight. A few feet from the car, shining in the headlights, a wide and rusting iron gate blocked the dirt road. Dean slammed his hand on the steering wheel and cursed. "This is pointless, Sam! We're never going to find this cemetery. You just had to find us a job in the middle of nowhere!"

"Half of our jobs are in the middle of nowhere," Sam said calmly, his pen flashlight never wavering from the notebook in his lap.

"Yeah, but this is the middle of the middle of frickin' nowhere! The last town we drove through was an hour ago, and it was nothing but six houses and a feed store!" Dean shoved open the Impala's door, cursing even louder when the scraggly brush at the side of the road scraped along the paint. "Look! Look what this job is doing to my baby! I'm gonna have to scrub the grill with a toothbrush!"

"Baby, baby, baby," Sam muttered under his breath. He climbed out of the car and laid his notebook on the hood. Stretching both arms overhead, he looked down the road they'd followed into this stretch of woods. It had been paved for five miles, gravel for three after that, and for the past two it had been dirt and weeds, winding through trees, barely wide enough for the car to pass through. Sam glanced at the front of the Impala and winced at the layer of dust, pollen, and leaves coating the black paint.

Dean, both hands wrapped around the top bar of the gate, shook it hard and let out a roar of frustration. "Now we're going to have to hoof it, carrying the gear. Son of a bitch!"

Sam rolled his eyes. "We're not that far away. Walk might do you some good, work off some of those burgers. Don't think I didn't see you scarfing down five at that last place."

"They were good." Dean kicked the gate. "Dairy bar, though? What the hell is a dairy bar? Sounds like a place cows go to get laid." He kicked the gate a few more times for good measure, then circled the car and stood beside Sam. "I thought you got a map. Isn't there a paved road in this entire county?"

Sam pulled a few papers out of his jacket pocket and unfolded one. He spread it across the Impala's hood and jabbed at the circle drawn on it. "I did get a map. This is the map! It says this road is solid, paved all the way through, and that it leads straight past the cemetery."

"Well, your map's wrong! You should have double-checked. Satellite or something!"

Sam snorted and shook his head. "Dean, there are no satellite images out here. I checked. I looked at every site that even hints at an aerial view. Every single one of them said 'no image available'. The best I could find was an old photograph some guy in the twenties took from his frickin' biplane, and it showed nothing but trees and fields. Oh, and maybe some cows, but they could have been rocks. Or more trees. This was the best I could do."

"Great." Dean slumped against the car, staring into the dark woods. "We're so far out in the middle of nowhere that nobody gives a damn. This is deliverance country, Sam."

"If you keep bitching, I'm going to hand you over to the first banjo player I find." Sam folded up his map and shoved all the papers into the notebook. He tossed it into the car. "Let's turn around, come back in the morning."

"Turn around? Turn around?" Dean flailed wildly, gesturing at nothing. ""Does it look like we can turn around to you? I'm going to have to drive backwards the whole way, and what that's going to do to my--"

"Paint job, grill, rims, blah blah blah." Dean glared at him and Sam shrugged. "Look, what do you want me to do? Walk behind the car and make sure you don't hit anything?"

Dean lifted his brows. "Great idea. First of the night." He hopped into the car and gunned the engine. "Start walking, Sammy."

---

Sam stomped his feet hard and scraped his heel on a fallen log by the side of the road. The mud spattering his jeans was hopeless and would have to stay until he could find a place to do laundry. His jacket and shirt were even worse. "I'm going to kill you," he said in a flat voice. "Kill you dead. And just to punish you, I'm not going to burn your bones."

"You know I'll just come back and haunt you," Dean said, grinning like an idiot. "I'll go all vengeful spirit on your ass."

"You hit that mud on purpose."

"You were the one directing, Sammy. Not my fault if you tripped into the mud. It's those Sasquatch feet of yours."

"Shut up." Sam stripped out of his jacket, balled it up, and tossed it into the trunk. He found a shirt that was mostly clean and changed into that.

"Get the rest of that mud off," Dean said, leaning on the roof of the Impala. "You're not messing up my baby."

Sam made a face. "I'll put down a tarp." He stomped his feet on the road one more time to knock away as much mud as he could. "Let's go back to town, find a place to stay."

"Not going to be a place in that last town. Unless you're planning to camp in the feed store."

"No, the one past it. The bigger one."

Dean growled. "Oh, yeah, bigger. A gas station and a traffic light. Think I saw a lumber yard, too. Bright lights, big city."

"Hey, you're the one who agreed to take this job. I found three that looked good, and you picked this one. If you're just going to bitch about it, you should have picked a different hunt."

Dean kicked a rock, hunched into his coat, and muttered. Sam raised his brows. "What was that?"

Dean huffed. "I said, Hall of Fame. I thought maybe we could swing north to see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame after the job was done, all right?"

Sam stared at Dean, then laughed so hard he had to lean on the car to catch his breath. "Should have known that's why you picked Ohio."

"Shut up." Dean slid into the car and gripped the steering wheel tight. "Get in. And don't get mud on my seats or I'll kill you."

---

After the fifth pass through the town, Dean pulled the Impala into the minuscule parking lot of the sole gas station and stared at the dark, closed building. "It's not even eight. It's not even eight, Sam, and the entire town's shut down. Even if it wasn't, what are we doing? No hotel, no motel, not even a 'rooms to let' sign anywhere. What, if you're not local, you get the hell out of town before the sun drops?"

"Maybe." Sam looked up from his notebook and glanced out the window. "Though from what I could see, there's not a whole lot to offer here even during the day. No shopping, no entertainment. Nothing but hair salons and farm equipment." He pointed across the street to a low building set back from the road, with rows of rough-hewn stones in front. "And a tombstone store. That's new."

"Probably have someone die of boredom every other day." Dean drummed his fingers on the wheel, exhaling with annoyance. "You'd think there'd be something. Anything! I'd take the Overlook Hotel at this point."

"Yeah," Sam muttered. "Because what we need right now is Jack Nicholson with an ax."

"Hey, Sammy! Good job." Dean smacked his shoulder and grinned. "You got the reference."

"I've been traveling with you for months. I've learned every single Nicholson film by heart just from your quotes." Sam thumped his head against the seat. "C'mon. Let's get some sleep, start over in the morning."

---

"Move it, Sam," Dean said, standing on the concrete ramp outside the town's only restaurant. "You're crimping along like a granny, there."

"Just because you're short enough to sleep in the car without cramping up," Sam muttered. He shouldered past Dean into the restaurant and came to a stop just inside the door. A dozen laminated tables were all filled with old, some outright elderly, men, most in overalls and stained caps. No one appeared to look up from their coffee and breakfasts, but Sam felt them staring at him and Dean.

"Coffee," Dean said, nearly moaning, and he started toward an empty booth in the corner of the restaurant. Chairs scraped and a handful of men coughed, almost a warning.

Sam grabbed Dean's arm and brought him to a halt. "I think you're about to make a big mistake," he said in a low tone. "Most of these men have probably been sitting in the same spot for a hundred years. Don't steal anyone's seat, dude." He released Dean and looked at the nearest table, smiling as innocently as he could manage. "Is there a free table where me and my brother could sit?"

The four men at the table glanced at each other, then the oldest one grunted. "Counter's free," he said, gesturing with his chin toward the back of the restaurant.

"Thanks." Sam led Dean to the counter and perched on one of the stools, trying to ignore the splits in the orange plastic that were pressing through his jeans. He plucked a menu from between the salt and pepper shakers in front of him and flopped it open. Each page was handwritten, stained with coffee rings and ketchup blotches.

"Sammy," Dean said, his eyes locked on his own menu. "Sammy, I've changed my mind about this job. We are in the promised land, and it's cheap. Fifty cents for a coffee? Two bucks for eggs? And toast? And hominy? I don't even know what hominy is, but I want some." He flipped to the next page. "Pancakes, hash browns, home fries? Fried ham, sausage patties, sausage links, sausage in gravy. Go on without me, Sam. I'm staying here in heaven."

Sam rolled his eyes. "I can hear your arteries clogging."

Coffee cups banged on the counter in front of them, and Sam looked up to smile at the waitress. The name tag pinned to her blouse read 'Janie'. She gave them a bleary, bloodshot stare and hid a yawn behind her order pad. "What'll it be?"

"Um, coffee and scrambled eggs for me. Wheat toast, if you've got it." Sam said before Dean ordered half the menu, heavy on the meat.

Dean gnawed his way through most of a pig while Sam looked over their notes. The sleepy waitress stopped to refill his coffee and tapped one bitten-down nail on a paper with a list of names and dates. "Genealogy project? Who are you looking for?"

Sam glanced up, blinking. He and Dean had planned a cover story as per usual, but he discarded it immediately. "A great-aunt on our mother's side. We were told that she's buried in Simon Cemetery, but so far we've had no luck finding it. The map says the road should go right past it, but we tried and the road just sort of ... ended."

Janie gave a snorting laugh. "Yeah, good luck finding a map that'll tell you the truth about the roads around here. Not one of 'em has been updated since the forties." She tugged their map over and grabbed a pen. "All right, you want to take this road, make a turn-off here, and go past the bee tree. You'll see a collapsed barn on the left, and the graveyard you want is just on the other side of the creek near the old trestle bridge. Hasn't rained in a while, so you can cross easy. The road's real hard to see. Drive slow. If you cross the train tracks, you'll have to go on another three miles to the turn-around before you can come back."

She talked in a rapid patter, marking out her directions in quick strokes. Not one road she mentioned was on the map. Sam shook his head and sighed. "That's ... helpful, thanks."

"But you won't find her," Janie said.

"What?" Sam asked.

"Wh--?" echoed Dean with a mouthful of sausage. He chewed and swallowed fast. "What do you mean? Is she in a different cemetery?"

"God knows." Janie shrugged and tucked her pen behind her ear. "Might be, might not. If records say she is, then maybe. Problem is, all those stones are worn down. Doubt you could read a single one of 'em, which ones are even still standing. Good luck. Oh, and keep an eye out for snakes."

Sam and Dean exchanged glances, then Sam pushed his coffee cup forward for a refill. "Extra caffeine, please."

---

"Son of a bitch!"

Dean's shout echoed off the surrounding hills, along with the dull thud of the shovel as he threw it on the ground. Sam sighed, ruffling his hair. "Janie warned us."

There were less than twenty stones in this cemetery, and over half of them had fallen over, cracked at the bases and crumbling as the ground settled beneath them. The few still standing were covered with mold and moss or had eroded to blankness. They'd turned over all the fallen stones and found nothing more than disturbed pill bugs, slugs, and earthworms.

"This is weak." Dean kicked the shovel, then picked it up and threw it out of the cemetery. Sam watched it fly, followed the arc back to earth, and blinked when it made a ringing noise as it landed. He glanced at Dean. Dean glanced at him. "What the hell?"

"Dunno." Sam moved first, jogging across the cemetery and hopping the low row of stones that marked the boundary. About fifty feet out, he smacked into something flat and solid hidden in the tall weeds. Sam hauled the weeds away, clearing the ground, and Dean quickly joined him. After a few minutes they found a slab of concrete half-buried in the dirt.

They stared at each other for a moment with equal looks of confusion. "Dude," Dean said finally.

Sam nodded in agreement. Crouching beside the slab, he brushed the last of the weeds and dirt away from letters carved into it. Unlike the stones in the tiny cemetery, the letters here were mostly legible with some effort. "Ida Simon," he read, squinting to make out the words. "Condemned to perdition for her crimes. May god have mercy on the little souls."

"Well, that's pleasant." Dean kicked the edge of the slab. "Condemned for your crimes? Sounds like you're our girl, Ida."

"Buried outside hallowed ground, concrete slab over the grave?" Sam pried at one corner of the slab where it had cracked. He managed to break a piece away, exposing a round rod inside the slab. He gave the end of the rod a close examination and raised his head to look at Dean. "With solid iron through the concrete. They did not want this woman getting back up."

"Yeah. Definitely our girl." Dean grabbed his shovel and slung it over his shoulder. "Sledgehammer time."

---

"Son of a--"

"Dean, I swear, if you say 'son of a bitch' one more time, I am going to jam this sledgehammer down your throat." Sam wiped his forehead on his sleeve and glared at the slab. It had turned out to be less of a slab and more of a block, at least a foot thick, with most of it underground. They still hadn't managed to get through, except for a few cracks near the center.

"Take a note, Sammy. From now on we're carrying a jackhammer and blasting caps." Dean kicked the slab and swore at it. "Using extra salt on you," he muttered. "And every drop of lighter fluid I got. And then I'm roasting marshmallows over your ass."

He hauled his sledgehammer over his shoulder and slammed it down on the slab. The ground under them shook as cracks spidered across the concrete. The center shattered. Dean stared, then dropped the sledgehammer and backed away. Sam was a step behind.

The slab gave a violent groan and split down the middle, shards flying. Sam and Dean stared at the slab. After a minute, Dean sniffed. "Hey, do you smell cucumbers?"

Sam's eyes widened. He grabbed Dean's arm and hauled him away from the slab only a few seconds before a dozen snakes slithered up through the crack, mouths open. "Copperheads!" Sam shouted, pulling Dean back toward the cemetery. "We disturbed a nest."

"Snakes," Dean muttered. He fidgeted with the gun tucked in the back of his jeans. "Why did it have to be snakes?"

"Yeah, c'mon, Indy." Sam shook his head. "Going to have to kill those before we can go any further."

"This is the worst job we've done." Dean swore and flipped the bird at the slab. "We've still got a couple of days. Let's hit town, grab a beer. Those little bastards'll be gone by the time we get back."

Sam grimaced. "Uh, Dean. This is a dry county. No bars, no beer."

"Son of a bitch!"

---

Spoilerish, amusing note:
The cement slab mentioned does actually exist in one of my local cemeteries, with some liberties taken for my story. I don't know who's buried under there or what he did, but they really did not want him getting out. o.O