The Heroes' Paradox

22. Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things

The Impala, followed by the Mustang, zoomed down a two-lane blacktop. Dean was driving, Sam was passenger, and Daisy was in back.

"Come on, Sam, I'm begging you. This is stupid," Dean said.

"Why?" Sam wondered.

"Going to visit Mom's grave? She doesn't even have a grave, there was no body left after the fire."

"She has a headstone."

"Yeah, put up by her uncle, a man we've never met. So you want to go pay your respects to a slab of granite put up by a stranger?"

"Dean, that's not the point."

"Well then, enlighten me, Sam. Brighten Daisy's day."

"It's not about a body, or, or a casket. It's about her memory, okay?"

"Hmmm."

"And after Dad, it just... just feels like the right thing to do."

"It's irrational, is what it is."

"Look, man. No one asked you to come."

Daisy glanced at her eldest brother. "I want to see Mom's grave. You don't have to. But don't be an ass about it."

"Why don't we swing by the Roadhouse instead?" Dean suggested. "I mean, we haven't heard anything about the demon lately, we should be hunting that son of a bitch down."

"That's a good idea, you should. Just drop me and Daisy off, we'll hitch a ride, and we'll meet you and maybe the girls there tomorrow."

"Right. To be... stuck with those people, making awkward small talk until you show up? No thanks."

Sam knelt before a headstone, digging in the ground with a folding knife. He pulled out a set of dog-tags from his pocket and sighed. "I think, um, I think Dad would have wanted you to have these." He buried them. "I love you, Mom."

Reagan and Daisy placed a hand on Sam's shoulders and offered him a small smile.

Nearby, Dean was standing by another gravestone, marked as "Loving Father". He walked towards a dying tree and frowned. He noticed a perfect circle of dead grass surrounding a gravestone. He crouched down, fingering dead flowers. Madelyn walked up with a frown as she looked at the dead flowers.

Dean took a card from a man in a suit, then he and Madelyn walked over to Sam, Daisy and Reagan.

"Angela Mason," Dean said. "She was a student at the local college, funeral was three days ago."

"And?" Sam and Daisy asked.

"And? You two saw her grave. The girls did too. Everything dead around it, in a perfect circle? You don't think that's a little weird?"

"Maybe the groundskeeper went a little agro with the pesticide," Sam guessed.

"No, I asked him, I asked him. No pesticide, no chemicals. Nobody can explain it."

"Okay, so what are you thinking?"

"I dunno. Unholy ground, maybe?"

"Un-"

"What? If something evil happened there, it could easily poison the ground. Remember the, the farm outside of Cedar Rapids?"

"Yeah, b-"

Dean cut him off. "Could be the sign of a demonic presence. Or the, the Angela girl's spirit, if it's powerful enough." Sam nodded and turned away. "Well, don't get too excited, you might pull something."

"It's just... stumbling onto a hunt? Here of all places?"

"So?"

"So? Are you sure this is about a hunt and not about something else?"