"Look, I know you're just doing your job, but the police have been here all week. I don't see why we have to go through this again...the more he tells the story, the more he believes it's true."

"Mrs. McKay," Katherine looks up at the woman across from her from underneath the brim of her hat. "We know you spoke with the local authorities already, but this seems like a matter for the state police."

"Don't worry about how crazy it sounds, Evan." Sam smiles a bit at the young boy. "Just tell us what you saw."

He sighs heavily. "I was up late, watching TV, when I heard this weird noise..."

"What did it sound like?"

"It sounded like a monster."

"Tell the officers what you were watching," Mrs. McKay prompts.

"Um...Gozilla vs. Mothra."

Dean laughs. "That's my favorite Godzilla movie," he says. "So much better than the original."

"Totally," Evan agrees.

Sam looks disapprovingly to Dean. "He likes the remake."

"Ew."

Katherine sighs a bit. "Evan, did you see what this thing was?" She asks.

"No, but I saw it grab Mr. Jenkins! It pulled him underneath the car!"

"Then what?"

Evan glances to the window. "It took him away. I heard the monster leaving. It made this really scary sound."

"Like what?"

"This...whining growl..."

Katherine glances to both brothers before nodding at Mrs. McKay. "Thanks for your time," she says, and the hunters get on their way.

Earlier that week came a nasty fight with a nest. Everyone's worn down, bruised, cut. It was the intention to sleep all week, but...

Here they are, sitting in a dive, surrounded by country music, pool table clatter, general liveliness.

Dean sits down in front of Katherine and slides an open beer towards her. She shakes her head and passes it back to him. He frowns. "You good?"

"I think if I drink that, it's gonna have to be a nightcap."

Dean chews on his lip. "We can still back off the case," he says. "If you're not one hundred percent—"

"No, I'm fine," she insists. "I'm just tired and sore. I've dealt with worse." There's a jovial cheer from the pool table directly behind her. She turns to look at the fuss.

If she wasn't so tired, she'd love to play a game. How long had it been since she properly hustled one?

"Anyway," Katherine hums, looking back over her computer. "The local police have now ruled out foul play—apparently, there weren't signs of a struggle."

"Well, they could be right," Dean hums, looking to the dart board. "Could just be a kidnapping. Maybe this isn't our kinda gig."

"Or it is," she chirps. "My dad and I blew through these parts a couple years back—possible hunting grounds for a phantom attacker."

Dean frowns and wanders over to their bar top. "What'd you guys find?"

Katherine tries to ignore how close he's standing to her. "Found a lot of local folklore about a dark figure that comes out at night, grabs people, then vanishes. Did you know this county has more missing persons per capita than anywhere else in the state?"

Dean smirks as he looks down at her. "Have I ever told you how smart you are?"

"Dude."

"Okay, yeah, that's weird," he agrees after a moment, and returns to the dart board. She sighs, resting her cheek in her hand. "Don't phantom attackers usually snatch people from their beds?" He turns around and catches her in the act of heart eyes. "Jenkins was taken from a parking lot."

"Well, there are all kinds," she tells him, and speaks around her yawn. Sam returns from the bathroom and sits down next to her. "Spring-heeled jacks, phantom gassers—they take people anywhere, anytime. I dunno, maybe you're right—maybe this isn't our kind of thing."

"We can ask around tomorrow. You're falling asleep on me, Snow White."

"You got your fairytales mixed up." Her yawn turns into a laugh as she looks to Dean with hooded eyes.

"Why don't you go start the car? I gotta take a leak."

"'Kay." He drops the keys into her palm and she slides off the barstool, dragging her jacket with her. Dean stares after her.

"I'll go get the tab," Sam says, and the brothers split.

Katherine tugs her jacket on and flips her wrist, tucking her belongings between her forearm and her hip. That action alone pulls deliciously at the sore muscles in her arm.

Maybe you're getting sick-sick. It is flu season—and when's the last time you got the shot?

The realization dawns on her and fills her with dread. Please don't let it be the flu.

She strolls past a couple of bikers who politely nod at her.

Some chains drag through the dirt nearby, and Katherine's stroll comes to a halt. She smacks her lips, wetting her dry mouth, and sets her stuff on the trunk of the Impala to reach for her flashlight. She blinks the sleep from her eyes, yawns one more time, and flicks her flashlight on.

More chains—not by the dumpster.

"Ugh." Katherine slowly gets to her knees--slowly. Dizzyingly. She looks underneath the car parked by the Impala.

A stray cat yowls and claws at her face.

"Oh, you little shit!" She swipes back at it and rolls onto her butt.

Once her heart has resumed its normal rhythm, she climbs to her feet and rounds the side of the Impala.

Then something grips her ankles and yanks.

Dean's gut turns cold when he sees Katherine's personal effects on the trunk. He opens up the front door and peeps in the back—she's not there. He frowns and turns back to the dive.

She forget something? Where's Sam?

As he's approaching the bar, Sam emerges. "Hey, did Katherine go back in there?"

"If she did, I didn't see her." Sam glances to the car and ducks back inside. Dean inquires about her to people coming out. Then Sam returns, shaking his head.

"Kat!"

"KD?"

"Katherine Louise!"

"Hey—Dean." Sam slaps the back of his hand against Dean's chest and points up to surveillance cameras posted to the sign pole.

✕

"What can I do for you, officers?"

"We're working a missing persons," Dean replies, tucking his badge away in his jeans pocket.

"I didn't realize the Jenkins case was being covered by state police." Officer Hudak frowns.

"No, no, a different one. An old friend, actually. We were at this bar down by the highway, and we haven't seen her since."

"Does your 'friend' have a drinking problem?"

"No, she doesn't drink," Sam replies. It's half a lie. She wasn't drinking last night. "And she's under twenty-one."

"All right. What's her name?"

"Donovan," Dean says, and Officer Hudak waves the boys back behind the swinging door. "Katherine Louise Donovan."

The sheriff pops it into the database. There she is.

RECORD ID   DF-23094

NAME: KATHERINE LOUISE DONOVAN
DOB: MAY 8, 1986
PLACE OF BIRTH: HALEY, FLORIDA

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION:
5'9" HEIGHT
120-150 LBS
BLONDE HAIR
BLUE EYES

NO DISTINCTIVE MARKINGS OR TATTOOS

RELEVANT LINKS:

CLAY DONOVAN - FATHER OF SUBJECT

JULIA DONOVAN (PRESUMED DECEASED) - MOTHER OF SUBJECT

MITCH DONOVAN (MISSING) - BROTHER OF SUBJECT

OLIVIA DONOVAN (PRESUMED DECEASED) - SISTER OF SUBJECT

DYLAN DONOVAN (PRESUMED DECEASED) - BROTHER OF SUBJECT

Sam reels at the layout of information. He figures, while his 'relevant links' section might be shorter, it may not look all that different from his or Dean's.

"Katherine Louise Donovan," Officer Hudak hums, and squints at her computer. "Oh, wow...so you know that basically her entire family died in a house fire...or is missing...?"

"Yeah, it was real tragic," Dean says. "She's really a great girl, though—she's graduating from Yale this spring. Med school."

"Oh?" She clicks around for a few moments. "She's not showing up in any current field reports."

"Oh, we already have a lead," Sam says. Officer Hudak raises an eyebrow at him. "There are surveillance cameras out by the highway."

"Uh-huh. Country traffic cam."

"Right. Um...maybe the camera picked up whatever took her. Er—whoever."

"Well, I have access to the traffic cam footage down at the County Works department, but...well, in the meantime, let's do this the right way. I'm gonna have you fill out a missing persons report. If you have a picture of her, that would be great, we can photocopy it and put it in our database." She hands Dean a clipboard. "You can fill it out right over there."

Guilt thickens in Dean's throat. "Officer, look. She's family. I mean...I look after the kid. You gotta let us go with you."

Officer Hudak looks between the two boys and shakes her head. "I'm sorry, I can't let you do that."

"Well, tell me somethin'," Dean hums, and pulls the last important thing Katherine told him from his brain. "Your county has its fair share of missing persons...any of 'em come back?" She flashes him a tight, awkward smile. "Katherine is my responsibility. And she's coming back. We're bringing her back."

Katherine hisses as she wakes up, more sore than before. When she opens her eyes, it takes everything within her not to panic.

She's locked in a cage of spiral steel bars. She rattles it--there's some give, but not much. There's a terrible smell. It's dark.

There's a body not five feet away, in another cage. She pulls on the walls.

Nothin.

"Greg, Jake?" They turn to look at the approaching Officer Kathleen Hudak. "I think we got somethin'." She passes over a series of print-out screen grabs. "These traffic cams take a picture every three seconds as part of the Amber Alert program. These images were all taken around the same time your friend Katherine disappeared."

Sam and Dean flip through them quickly. Highway shots. Nothing that tells them about what took Katherine.

"This isn't really what we're looking for," Sam says.

"Next one," Kathleen tells them. Sam flips. "This was taken right after the time you said Katherine left the bar." An old, beat-up camper with a truck cab. "Look at the back end of that thing. Now look at the plates."

"Plates look new," Dean hums. "So it was probably stolen."

"So whoever's driving that rust bucket must be involved," Sam says. Kathleen nods.

There's a terrible screech rolling down the road. It belongs to an old black van. And the sound--

"You hear that engine?" Sam asks. Dean nods. "What's it sound like?"

"Like a whining growl," Dean hums. "I'll be damned."

Okay, you're cool. You're cool. Dad did this shit to you all the time. You're cool. Katherine swings her whole weight into her legs to kick at one side of the cage. She can hear her father now. You've been buried alive before. You can't get out of a cage?

Her dirty, sweaty hands slip from the bars and she drops to her bruised back with a cry.

The man in the cage moves--the one she thought was dead. Maybe he's not the dead body, but there is a dead body.

He groans, pulling himself to his knees. Katherine rolls from her back to look at him. "Hey," she pants. "Hey, you okay?"

"Does it look like I'm doin' okay, sweetheart?"

"Do you know where we are?"

"No...Country, I think. Maybe. Smells like the country."

"It smells like a dead body," Katherine refutes. She leans into the bars to get a good look at the man, but with the next-to-zero lighting, it's near impossible. "You're Alvin Jenkins, aren't you?"

"Yeah."

She scoffs, shaking her head. "Man, I was...just looking for you."

"Yeah? Well, no offense, but this is a piss-poor rescue."

"Obviously," she mutters. "I got two guys out there, they're...they're looking for us." Right? They wouldn't leave me...Sam definitely wouldn't.

"Well, I got news for you—they ain't gonna find us. We're in the middle of nowhere, waiting for them to come back to do God-knows-what to us."

"What are they?" Katherine asks, leaning up against the wall again. "Have you seen them?"

He stares at her. "What are you talking about?"

"You said 'they'—what do they look like?"

A door opens, and Alvin moves as far away from the light as possible. "See for yourself!"

Katherine flattens out and peers through a hole in the wood backing of her cage. She can't see much. Too damn dark. So she listens. Metal clangs, buzzing, metal squeaking as it opens.

It's an electronically-controlled cage. Like a jail cell.

Freaking perfect.

"Leave me alone," Alvin says. Katherine gets a look at her assailant. There's more than one. "Leave me alone! Don't you touch me!"

She watches the hooded figures curiously. They leave a plate for Alvin and get on their way.

"Oh, my God," she whispers. "They're just people."

"Yeah," Alvin says, sounding like he's got a mouthful of food. "What'd you expect?"

Katherine turns her head a bit. He can't see much of her through the sparing light, but it catches on the high points of her face. Just above her eyebrow, her cheekbone, jawline, nose. He guesses she's pretty. "How often do they feed you?"

"Once a day. They use that thing over there to open the gates." He points to the control box on the wooden post down by the door.

"And that's the only time you see them?"

"So far...but I'm waitin'. Ned Beatty time, girly."

"I don't know what you're talking about," she grumbles, pushing herself up to stand. She secures her feet into the wall of her cage and reaches up for a dangling length of rebar.

If she's guessed right, he's going to try to bum-rush their captors, and it isn't going to go well. She's not gonna wait around for that.

"What do you think they want? They're a bunch of psycho hillbilly rednecks, if you ask me, looking for love in all the wrong places!"

The steel is moving a little. So she keeps pulling, dangling with all of her weight.

"The next traffic cam is fifty miles from here," Kathleen says. "And the truck didn't pass that one."

"So they pulled off somewhere," Sam figures. She nods.

"I don't see any other roads here," Dean says, squinting down at the map in his hands.

"A lot of these backwoods properties have their own private roads."

"Great."

Kathleen's computer chirps—feedback from her inquiry. "So, guys?"

"Yeah?"

"I ran your badge numbers. It's routine when we're working a case with state police, for accounting purposes and what have you."

Shit.

"They just got back to me." Dean glances out of the window as Kathleen pulls off the highway. "Says here your badges were stolen? And...here are pictures of you..." She points to the computer.

Dean clears his throat. "I lost some weight," he says. "And I got that Michael Jackson skin disease—"

"Okay, get out of the car."

"Look, look, look." Sam leans forward. "If you want to arrest us, that's fine. We'll cooperate. But first—please—let us find Katherine."

"I don't even know who you are," Kathleen says. "Or if this Katherine girl is missing."

"Look into my eyes and tell me if I'm lying about this," Dean tells her.

"Identity theft? You're impersonating officers."

Dean rubs his mouth. "I've gotta find her," he says. "I have to. She's my responsibility, all right? I made a promise. I'm just afraid if we don't find her fast..." His voice breaks, and he swallows. "Please. She's family."

Kathleen shakes her head. "I'm sorry. You've given me no other choice. I have to take you in." She watches his composure crumble before her own eyes. Looking back at Sam, he's not even looking up. He's got his head in his hands. She exhales sharply. "After we find Katherine Donovan."