ANDY SIGHED, STARING OUT THE PASSENGER SIDE WINDOW WHILE SAM WAS ASLEEP IN THE BACK SEAT,

"I know that sigh. That's your irritated sigh." Dean commented, glancing over at the woman,

"I'm not irritated." Andy grumbled, still staring out the window and Dean gave her a look, "Okay, I'm irritated." She sat up and turned towards Dean, "Jessica dying the same way your mother did? No coincidence there." She made sure Sam was still sleeping before continuing, "The demon was after Sam and I want to know why."

"To get to dad? To get us to stop looking for it?" Dean suggested, "He was sending a warning."

"Why not just kill us? Why keep us alive?" She questioned,

"I don't know Andy, why would I know what's going through the demon's head?" Dean snapped at her,

Andy huffed and sat back in her seat, her gaze going out the window once more. More people are going to get hurt if they didn't find this demon soon. 

It clearly has an agenda.

Sam sat up with a panicked gasp and Andy turned to look at him, "You okay, Sam?"

He nodded, blinking furiously, "Yeah, I'm fine."

"Another nightmare?" Dean asked but all Sam did was clear his throat. Andy and Dean exchanged worried looks before Dean spoke again, "You wanna drive for a while?"

Sam chuckled, "Dean, your whole life you never once asked me that."

Andy glared at the driver. He had never offered to let her drive before.

Dean shrugged, "Just thought you might want to. Never mind."

The younger Winchester leaned forward, his head peeking between the two in the front, "Look, man, you're worried about me. You both are." He glanced between them, "I get it, and thank you, but I'm perfectly okay."

"Mm-hm." Dean hummed,

Sam grabbed the map from Andy's lap, "All right, where are we?"

"Just outside of Grand Junction." Andy answered, turning around and snatching the map back,

Sam sighed and leaned back in his seat, "You know what? Maybe we shouldn't have left Stanford so soon."

Dean shook his head, "Sam, we dug around there for a week. We came up with nothing. If you wanna find the thing that killed Jessica-"

"We gotta find Dad first." Sam finished for him before leaning forward, grabbing the map again and Andy huffed in her seat,

Dean had been saying that the entire week they were in Stanford. 

"Dad disappearing and this thing showing up again after twenty years, it's no coincidence. Dad will have answers. He'll know what to do." Dean stated confidently,

Sam furrowed his eyebrows while staring at the map, "It's weird, man. These coordinates he left us. This Blackwater Ridge..."

"What about it?" Dean asked,

"There's nothing there. It's just woods." Sam finished,

"I could've told you that if you would stop taking the map." Andy mumbled,

Both the boys ignored her, "Why is he sending us to the middle of nowhere?" Sam asked,

Andy had a feeling it wasn't because John wanted them to go camping and sing Kumbaya.

It wasn't much longer before they arrived at the Lost Creek National Forest. The trio stopped at the ranger station and went inside to find more information about the town,

"So Blackwater Ridge is pretty remote." Sam informed them as he looked at a three-dimensional map of the forest, "It's cut off by these canyons here, rough terrain, dense forest, abandoned silver and gold mines all over the place."

"Dude, check out the size of this freaking bear." Andy turned to see Dean staring at a framed photo of a hunter standing behind the corpse of a giant bear,

Andy and Sam rolled their eyes before the younger Winchester went over to join his brother, "And a dozen or more grizzlies in the area."

"It's no nature hike, that's for sure." Andy sighed, crossing her arms,

"You kids aren't planning on going out near Blackwater Ridge by any chance?" The trio turned to see a ranger standing by his desk, holding a mug of coffee,

"Oh, no, sir, we're environmental study majors from UC Boulder, just working on a paper." Andy gave him a charming smile,

Dean grinned and raised a fist, "Recycle, man."

"Bull." The ranger stated and the three hunters shared a look, "You're friends with that Haley girl, right?"

Andy looked over at Dean, who was pouting his lips in thought, "Yes." He decided, "Yes, we are, Ranger Wilkinson."

"Well I will tell you exactly what we told her. Her brother filled out a backcountry permit saying he wouldn't be back from Blackwater until the twenty-fourth, so it's not exactly a missing persons now, is it?" Dean shook his head, "You tell that girl to quit worrying, I'm sure her brother's just fine."

Andy nodded, "We will, thank you, sir."

"Well that Haley girl's quite a pistol, huh?" Dean smirked and Andy rolled her eyes,

"That is putting it mildly." Ranger Wilkinson replied,

"Actually you know what would help is if I could show her a copy of that backcountry permit." Dean said to the ranger, "You know, so she could see her brother's return date."

After a little bit of more convincing, the ranger gave them copy of the permit. On it was the brother's name, Thomas Collins, and his address. 

"What, are you cruising for a hookup or something?" Sam asked his older brother as they walked back towards the car,

 "What do you mean?" Dean replied,

"The coordinates point to Blackwater Ridge, so what are we waiting for? Let's just go find Dad. I mean, why even talk to this girl?" Sam argued,

They stopped outside the Impala, "I don't know, maybe we should know what we're walking into before we actually walk into it?"

Andy and Dean exchanged a look. She understood why Sam was so impatient. He wanted to get revenge.

"What?" Sam asked, noticing the look,

"Since when are you all shoot first ask questions later, anyway?" Dean replied.

"Since now." Sam grunted before getting into the passenger seat.

"Oh, really?" Dean smirked before following Sam into the car.

After finding the Collins' house on the map, Dean drove the trio to the residence. Andy and Dean grabbed their Park Ranger IDs before approaching the front door.

A brunette woman around the same age as Andy opened the door, "You must be Haley Collins." Dean assumed, "I'm Dean, this is Sam and Andy, we're, ah, we're rangers with the Park Service. Ranger Wilkinson sent us over. He wanted us to ask a few questions about your brother Tommy."

Haley hesitated and Andy knew she didn't truly believe their story, "Lemme see some ID."

The two pulled out their fake IDs and held them up against the screen door. Haley looked at them closely before opening the door for them, "Come on in."

"Thanks."

Haley caught sight of the Impala, "That yours?" She asked,

Dean nodded, "Yeah."

"Nice car." Haley smirked before leading them into the home,

Dean went in first, turning back to Sam to mouth 'oh, man'. Andy rolled her eyes before pushing him further into the house,

The trio stood in the dining room, where the younger brother was sitting while Haley set the table up for dinner,

"So if Tommy's not due back for a while, how do you know something's wrong?" Sam asked,

"He checks in every day by cell. He emails, photos, stupid little videos. We haven't heard anything in over three days now." She explained,

"Well, maybe he can't get cell reception." Sam suggested,

"He's got a satellite phone, too."

"Could it be he's just having fun and forgot to check in?" Dean questioned,

"He wouldn't do that." The youngest Collins sibling spoke up.

Dean eyes Ben, not appreciating his tone, "Our parents are gone." Haley broke the pair's eye contact, "It's just my two brothers and me. We all keep pretty close tabs on each other."

"Can I see the pictures he sent you?" Sam asked.

Haley grabbed a laptop and pulled up the file of photos and videos that Tommy sent his sister. She clicked on the first photo to show a man in his early twenties in a tent, in each photo, he was grinning ear to ear.

He was happy.

"That's Tommy." She clicked on a video "This is his last message."

"Hey Haley, day six, we're still out near Blackwater Ridge. We're fine, keeping safe, so don't worry, okay? Talk to you tomorrow." Tommy said in the video before it ended.

Andy's eyebrows furrowed. She swore she saw something in the background, but it was too quick.

"Well, we'll find your brother. We're heading out to Blackwater Ridge first thing." Dean stated,

"Then maybe I'll see you there." Haley replied, "Look, I can't sit around here anymore. So I hired a guy. I'm heading out in the morning, and I'm gonna find Tommy myself."

"I think I know how you feel." Dean and Haley stared at each other while Andy went to play the video again, this time on mute.

There was something in the background. It was a shadow. 

"Hey, do you mind forwarding these to me?" Andy asked her,

Haley nodded, "Sure."

For dinner, the trio headed to a bar and found a table to sit at. Dean went to go flirt and get drinks while Andy and Sam did research. Sam was looking at all the mysterious deaths in the past few decades while Andy worked on trying to spot the shadow figure in the video.

"Anything?" Dean asked, sitting down at the table with a beer in his hand,

"So, Blackwater Ridge doesn't get a lot of traffic. Local campers, mostly. But still, this past April, two hikers went missing out there. They were never found." Sam began, opening a journal and handing Dean some newspaper articles,

"Any before that?"

"Yeah, in 1982, eight different people all vanished in the same year. Authorities said it was a grizzly attack. And again in 1959 and again before that in 1936. Every twenty-three years, just like clockwork." The younger Winchester explained,

Andy flipped Sam's laptop around and moved to stand between the brothers, leaning down to be eye level with them. Dean glanced over at her, watching her face contort in concentration. "Okay. Watch this. Here's a clincher. I downloaded that guy Tommy's video to the laptop. Check this out." Dean moved his gaze to the computer as she clicked through three frames from the video, where you could clearly see the shadow figure passing through,

Dean's eyebrows furrowed, "Do it again."

Andy repeated the frames, "That's three frames. That's gotta be a fraction of a second." Sam commented,

"Whatever that thing is, it can move." Andy stated,

Dean nudged Andy, "Told you something weird was going on."

"I got one more thing." Sam placed another newspaper article in the middle of the table so the other two could read it, "In 'fifty-nine one camper survived this supposed grizzly attack. Just a kid. Barely crawled out of the woods alive."

Andy grazed through the Lost Creek Gazette, reading about the attack, "Is there a name?" Dean asked,

"Robert Shaw." Sam answered,

"Let me guess, he still lives in Lost Creek?" Andy assumed.

And with that, the trio of hunters went to Robert Shaw's address. He was an old man with a raspy voice from years of smoking. He was disheveled and unorganised, and so was his apartment,

"Look, ranger, I don't know why you're asking me about this. It's public record. I was a kid. My parents got mauled by a-" 

"Grizzly?" Sam interrupted, "That's what attacked them?"

Mr. Shaw took a puff of his cigarette and nodded, turning back towards them,

"The other people that went missing that year, those bear attacks too?" Andy asked,

Robert didn't respond and Dean spoke, "What about all the people that went missing this year? Same thing?" There was a moment of silence and Dean continued, "If we knew what we were dealing with, we might be able to stop it."

"I seriously doubt that." Mr. Shaw responded as he went to sit down, "Anyways, I don't see what difference it would make. You wouldn't believe me. Nobody ever did."

Sam went to sit down across from the older man, "Mr. Shaw, what did you see?"

Mr. Shaw paused and Andy could see the fear in his eyes as he remembered that day, "Nothing. It moved too fast to see. It hid too well. I heard it, though. A roar. Like...no man or animal I ever heard."

"It came at night?" Sam asked. The old man nodded, "Got inside your tent?" Sam continued,

"It got inside our cabin." Shaw corrected, "I was sleeping in front of the fireplace when it came in. It didn't smash a window or break the door. It unlocked it." Dean and Andy shared a look. 

They were definitely dealing with something supernatural. 

"Do you know of a bear that could do something like that? I didn't even wake up till I heard my parents screaming."

"It killed them?" Sam questioned,

"Dragged them off into the night." Mr. Shaw shook his head in despair, "Why it left me alive...been asking myself that ever since. Did leave me this, though." He pulled on the collar of his shirt to reveal three long, jagged scars. Claw marks across his shoulder.

"There's something evil in those woods. It was some sort of a demon."

The three left and began walking down the corridor of Mr. Shaw's apartment building, "Spirits and demons don't have to unlock doors. If they want inside, they just go through the walls."

"So it's probably something else, something corporeal." Sam stated,

"Corporeal? Excuse me, professor." Dean joked,

"Shut up." Sam glanced down at Andy, "So what do you think?"

 Andy sighed, "The claws, the speed that it moves...could be a skinwalker, maybe a black dog." She suggested,

"Whatever we're talking about, we're talking about a creature, and it's corporeal. Which means we can kill it." Dean stated,

They made it into the parking lot and Dean opened the trunk of the Impala and went into the weapon box, "We cannot let that Haley girl go out there." Sam announced as Dean put guns into a duffel bag,

"Oh yeah? What are we gonna tell her? That she can't go into the woods because of a big scary monster?" Dean replied,

"I mean, we could." Andy suggested, crossing her arms across her chest,

"Her brother's missing, guys. She's not gonna just sit this out. Now we go with her, we protect her, and we keep our eyes peeled for our fuzzy predator friend." Dean picked up the duffel bag and Sam moved to close the trunk,

Andy knew he was right. Haley was too determined, all she had left were her brothers.

"Finding Dad's not enough?" Sam asked, "Now we gotta babysit too?" Dean paused and stared at his younger brother, "What?"

"Nothing." Dean grumbled, throwing the bag at Sam before walking off.

"I swear, you boys are so dramatic." Andy sighed before following after Dean, "Hey!" She jogged to catch up with him, "Sam's not himself, Dean, and you know why. So cut him some slack."

"I have." Dean grumbled, "I'm getting close to snapping."

"Well, don't." Andy reached out to get Dean to stop walking, "Do you really think it's a good idea to let Haley go out into the woods?"

He stared down at her, "Do you really think we can stop her?"