I. RUSTED ROADS AND
RESTLESS SOULS

THE Impala ate up the backroads of Kentucky— its headlights slicing through humid dark like a blade. Cicadas droned in the trees— an endless chorus that buzzed beneath the roar of the engine. Inside the car, the air was thick with heat, leather, and the low rustle of pages as Sam read aloud from the stack of research he'd pulled together at the last library pit stop.

"Twenty-three miners killed in a collapse," Sam said, flipping the page, "August 15th, 1996. Hollow Creek Mine. They only ever pulled out one survivor— a sixteen-year-old girl. Dixie Rae Ward. Everyone else was buried under tons of rock."

Dean's jaw flexed, eyes fixed on the road. "Sounds like a real party town."

Sam ignored the jab— he always tried to. "There's more. Ever since the collapse, there've been disappearances— most of them in July. Always leading up to the anniversary. People go missing without a trace. Local cops chalk it up to drifters or accidents, but it's consistent. Every summer, it's the same thing."

Dean snorted, "So we've got twenty-three pissed off miners still punching the clock in the afterlife."

"Or something feeding off the deaths," Sam countered, leaning back with the file. His hair stuck to his forehead in the heat, the sweat sliding down his temple. He wiped it away, then added, "This year it's already started. A kid went missing last week. Eleven years old. Name was Trevor Hensley. Parents swore he was walking home from the creek, but he never made it."

Dean shifted his grip on the wheel, the leather creaking under his palm. Kids. Always kids— he hated those cases the most.

Sam flipped through another article, his voice lower now. "And then there's the survivor, Dixie. The town doesn't look kindly on her. I've seen the gossip columns and the local forums. They call her cave rat. Some think she brought the curse with her. Some think she made a deal to crawl out alive."

Dean glanced at him. "And you're telling me this with your serious face, which means you think there might be something to it."

"I'm saying," Sam sighed, "if the miners' spirits are tied to the collapse, then her surviving could've made her a kind of beacon. A link. She might be the reason it keeps happening."

"Or she's just the one poor kid who caught a break," Dean muttered, voice hard. "Sometimes surviving doesn't mean anything more than dumb luck."

For a moment, silence filled the car, only the cicadas and engine between them. Dean knew all about surviving when you shouldn't and Sam didn't push.

Finally, Dean leaned forward and switched the radio down low. Classic rock hummed beneath his voice. "So, ghosts, curses, or pissed-off miners with unfinished business. Doesn't matter. We'll torch whatever's stirring before it takes anyone else."

Sam set the file aside, staring out into the thick Kentucky dark. The air pressed heavy through the cracked window, the smell of earth and distant coal dust still lingering after a decade. "The anniversary's in two weeks," he said. "If the pattern holds, things are only going to get worse."

Dean drummed his fingers on the wheel, smirking without humor. "Then we're right on time."

________

HI I AM SO EXCITED

qotd: favorite plot line
in supernatural?