Supernatural shops

This guy’s not from around here.
The thought occurred to Caleb as soon as he saw the man’s car. It was almost silent, drifting up the long driveway to the camp with no engine noise, the only sound the crunch of gravel under its tires. The gunmetal-gray frame came to a halt in the grass field adjacent to the camp that was too- generously labeled “Parking Lot.”
Caleb stared as the driver’s door opened and a tall man got out. The stranger’s appearance was immaculate—every hair perfectly in place—but something was off. Caleb figured it was probably the Hawaiian shirt.
“Where is Justin Black?” the man intoned, without preamble.
Despite Caleb’s considerable strengths as a camp counselor, actually keeping track of the children was a remarkably low priority for him. We’re in the middle of the woods, he told himself, where are they gonna go? For that reason, the Hawaiian-shirted man had caught him off guard.
“Uh… at camp?” Caleb said, and regretted the words as soon as they spilled from his mouth. Is Justin Black the fat one with the Harry Potter birthmark, he pondered, or the creepy little one who was always trying to give out free hugs?
“My son. His location.” The man paused for effect. “I require more specific information.”
Caleb glanced into the open window of the activities building, hoping that he’d happen to see the boy in there.
Nope.
“I’ll find him. He’s out by the lake, I think,” Caleb said, putting on his best reassuring voice. He’d better be, he thought, or this is going to be awkward.
“No,” the man said. “I’ll find him myself.”
The man walked purposefully toward the forest path, and Caleb quickly followed. There was something off-putting about the guy, and Caleb didn’t recognize him from parents’ night. Could have been the weed, though, he thought. Actually, wasn’t it Justin Black’s dad who’d brought the weed?
Caleb hurried to catch up to the man’s long strides.
“Is there a problem?” he asked. “Usually Justin’s mom picks him up—”
“No problem.” The man cut him off. “I just need to speak with the boy.”
Yup, he’s a pervert. Who else calls their son “the boy?”
Caleb sped up his pursuit.
“What was your name again?” Caleb asked, hoping it would jog some memory of this guy. “I didn’t catch it before.”
The man turned, slow and deliberate.
“Don. Call me Don.”

The camp counselor was certainly annoying, but it was by no means the worst thing Don had had to put up with in his long and storied existence. His former profession had brought him into contact with the absolute worst of the worst, the darkest blights on the fabric of humankind that ever walked the Earth. I’m like Jerry Springer without the fame, Don thought, amused by his own analogy. After his previous occupation, it didn’t take much to amuse Don.
Well, the fame part is about to change.
Losing the counselor in the forest was a simple matter. One moment, the kid was an arm’s-length away. The next, Don was a quarter-mile ahead of him. The path wound its way down a hill, dense thickets of forest obscuring the view. It would all be over before the counselor caught up.
The lake itself was pristine and beautiful, its glassy surface rippling with the slight breeze. An amazing summer day, one like Don hadn’t seen in… too long to remember.
“Ew! Don’t touch it with your bare hands!”
Don’s head turned an unnatural degree to find the source of the shout. It had come from a girl, about ten years old, running away from a boy of the same age.
Justin Black.
“You’re gonna get warts!” the girl cried, desperately dodging away from the frog in Justin’s outstretched hands.
“No I won’t,” Justin said, “my brother said frogs give you herpes.”
“What’s that?” the girl asked innocently.
“I dunno. Why don’t you ask the frog?” Justin thrust the amphibian at her, only to have it leap out of his hands and into the bog at the lake’s edge.
“Great, now you made me lose it,” Justin complained.
He reached down into the bog to find the lost creature, but another pair of hands got there first. Don lifted the frog out of the swampy water, holding it delicately, as if the slightest pressure would shatter it.
“It’s not lost, my boy,” Don said, a warm look on his face.
Justin took a step back, confused.
“Dad?”
“No, Justin, not exactly.”
The frog croaked loudly, startling both of the children.
Justin’s brow furrowed.
“Mom said you’re not supposed to come see me. She said the police wouldn’t let you.”
“My boy, that was the old me. There’s a new set of rules, now.” Don held out the frog to Justin, trying to bring the boy closer.

“You like frogs, don’t you?”
—-
Caleb’s mind was racing. Where had the man gone? Should he call the cops? How the hell had he got so far ahead? He began to run, hurtling down the path as he started to panic, stumbling over the uneven ground. Then he felt his foot hit a rock, sending him tumbling down the slope and slamming into a tree.
“Damn it!” he groaned, as the pain shot through him, bringing tears to his eyes. Wincing, he shifted into a sitting position and peered at his leg. His pants were ripped and a trail of blood was seeping down his thigh.
Crap.
He pulled himself up, took a step forward, and collapsed. Oh God, I can’t stand. Maybe it’s broken.
Fear filled his mind. Fear of what would happen to the kids at the lake, fear of what would happen when his boss found out about his inattentiveness, and fear of dying slowly of bloodloss out in the woods where no one could find him.
Calm the hell down, he thought, this isn’t even that bad. It’s barely even bleeding. That realization helped him get back to his feet. He had managed to hobble a few steps forward when he heard it.
The blood-curdling scream of Justin Black.

I can feel it, Dean thought. The sky is falling. It wasn’t a new feeling. In fact, the sky had been falling on Dean Winchester since he was four years old. The difference, of course, was that this time could very well be the last time. And this is where it all ends? The Apocalypse is gonna go down in the ass-edge of nowhere?

Dean let out a tired sigh as he gunned the Impala onto County Road 6. There was nothing on either side of the asphalt except cornfields, cattle, farms and farmers—the very Americana that Dean and his brother Sam fought to protect. For a moment, Dean’s imagination took hold, and the clouds on the horizon became pillars of smoke, spilling from unseen tongues of flame. The rotting wooden beams of a decrepit barn became the last remnants of humanity. Dean shook the vision out of his head, and the clouds were once again clouds. The barn was, once more, just a barn.

For months, Dean and Sam had been on the suicide mission to end all suicide missions—to hunt down and kill the Devil. Though the weight of the task seemed unbearable, the brothers knew that they were the only ones who could shoulder it. It was, after all, their fault that right now Lucifer walked the earth.

No. Sam’s fault.

Dean shoved the thought to the dark recesses of his mind. It wouldn’t do him any good to dwell on it. His younger brother—the boy who Dean had practically raised since their mother died—had broken the Final Seal. In a moment of weakness, Sam had killed the demon Lilith, unintentionally popping the lock on Satan’s cage. Now, after nearly a year of chasing him, they were no closer to shoving the bastard back into the lock-up.

But that wasn’t even the bad news. The angels, ostensibly protectors of humanity, had in fact been behind Satan’s jailbreak.

“They wanted you to break the Seal,” Dean had explained to his brother in the moments after Lucifer’s rise. “They’re sick of waiting around in Heaven. With Satan out, they get to bring on the prizefight. Winner takes Earth.”

The angels already had a plan in motion—according to the winged bastards, the only way to defeat Lucifer was for Dean to be the host for the archangel Michael, the most powerful weapon in Heaven’s arsenal. They even had an overdramatic pet name for Dean: the Michael Sword. Every fiber of Dean’s body rebelled against the idea. The battle between Michael and Lucifer would have the minor side effect of destroying half the Earth. A “planetary enema,” Zachariah had called it. The douche.

Lucifer’s final vessel was to be Sam. The symmetry must be funny to someone upstairs, Dean thought. Michael and Lucifer were brothers, one of them following closely in their father’s footsteps, the other… Well, just like Sam, Lucifer had always wanted to go his own way.

However, the one thing neither Heaven nor Hell could control was human will. While on Earth, angels—both righteous and fallen—had to take a willing human host. If Sam and Dean didn’t say “yes” to Lucifer and Michael, the battle couldn’t happen. The archangels would have to putter around in their alternate, non-ordained meatsuits, tearing their lesser vessels apart while they waited for Sam and Dean to come around to the party line.

The Winchester brothers weren’t going to fight each other. There had to be another way.

But every time they thought they had Lucifer within their sights, fate slapped their faces again. They had tried their old standby: straight-up violence, attempting to kill Lucifer outright. First with the Colt, a gun so powerful it was said to be able to kill anything, but that had barely given their Adversary a headache. They had Ruby’s demon-killing knife, but that was just as impotent against an archangel. The only chance they had left was to catch Lucifer by surprise. No small feat.

“Take a right at Camp Dakota Road,” Sam directed.

“Really? Couldn’t have figured that one out, Sam,” Dean shot back. “Since we’re going to a camp.”

Sam had been getting under his skin recently. Actually, everything had been getting under his skin. The endless hours on the road had proven useless thus far, and Dean was beginning to doubt that they would be able to win this war.

Can’t fight something you can’t find, he thought. But he also had doubts about his role in the battle to come. Even if I’m doing everything in my power to find another way… can someone change the role they’re destined by fate to play? Avoiding destiny is what Dean and Sam had been doing so far. But how much longer can we keep that up? They were flying under the angels’ radar, and for now, that was enough.

It had to be.

A week ago Sam had started tracking the local news from a small town in South Dakota. It had been lighting up with apocalyptic signs like an end-of-the-world Christmas tree.

Maybe we’re finally getting a freakin’ break, Dean thought hopefully.

Their first stop was a kids’ day camp. A gas station attendant a couple of towns over had told them about it. The scruffy dude had said he didn’t rightly know what had happened, but his cousin’s girlfriend’s mom had told him that it was like something out of the Bible and children had been harmed. That alone was enough to warrant a visit.

Dean pushed the accelerator to the Impala’s firewall, his hazel eyes glinting with anger. Every second they were delayed, Lucifer got another step ahead of them.